Alex Marquez led the way on the opening day of the Thailand MotoGP test in Buriram, while his elder brother Marc Marquez recovered from two early crashes to finish second.
Gresini rider Alex Marquez picked up where he left off in Sepang, setting a best time of 1m29.262s in the penultimate hour to top the timesheets. Although several rivals made improvements late in the day, the younger Marquez held on to the top spot by 0.129s.
The Buriram test got off to a lively start in the morning session, with several riders breaking the 1m30s barrier. Marc Marquez, Pedro Acosta and Luca Marini all held the top spot at one point, but it was Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia who set the benchmark in the three-hour session, a 1m29.678s.
Bagnaia’s time remained unbeaten until about three hours left in the afternoon running, when Marco Bezzecchi climbed to the top with a 1m29.462s on the Aprilia RS-GP.
The final two hours of the session saw a late onslaught from the Ducati riders, with Alex Marquez going quickest of all on his factory-spec GP26 to cement his position as one of the pre-season favourites. His time, however, was some way off the circuit record (1m28.700s), set by Bagnaia en route to pole position in the 2024 Thai GP.
Reigning world champion Marc Marquez’s day got off to a poor start, as he crashed at Turn 1 just 20 minutes in, before going down again at Turn 5 a few hours later.
But the Spaniard rebounded after the lunch break to go second-quickest, courtesy of a late flier of 1m29.391s on his factory Ducati.
Marc Marquez, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
VR46’s Franco Morbidelli was another rider to improve in the final 30 minutes of the day, the Italian going 0.011s faster than Bezzecchi to demote the Aprilia rider to fourth.
Honda enjoyed a solid outing on day one at Buriram, with LCR’s Johann Zarco and factory rider Joan Mir finishing fifth and seventh respectively – separated by the Trackhouse bike of Raul Fernandez.
KTM also surged to the top 10 in the final hour, with Tech3’s Maverick Vinales climbing to eighth place ahead of VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio.
Bagnaia couldn’t improve his morning benchmark and dropped to 10th in the overall order, just ahead of Brad Binder’sKTM.
Buriram saw Aprilia’s Jorge Martin ride a MotoGP bike for the first time since November’s test, following an extended injury layoff in the winter. The 2024 MotoGP champion wound up in 13th, over half a second off the outright pace.
Fabio Quartararo also made a comeback in Buriram after missing most of the Sepang test due to a finger injury. Riding the new V4-powered M1, he finished 18th, one spot ahead of Pramac’s Jack Miller on the same-spec bike.
The 22-bike field was propped up by Ducati test rider Michele Pirro, who substituted for the injured Fermin Aldeguer at Gresini.
Saturday’s action was punctuated by two brief red flags. The session was first stopped due to an air fence issue at Turn 1, before track conditions again forced all riders to return to the garage at the start of the final hour.
Buriram MotoGP test – Day 1 results:
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– The Autosport.com Team
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