What we learned from an unusual Friday at the MotoGP Indonesian GP

The opening day of track running at the Indonesian Grand Prix threw up plenty of surprises, as the established form book of the 2025 MotoGP season was tossed aside.

The fastest time at the end of pPractice was set by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi, and while that wasn’t surprising in itself, the advantage he had over the rest of the field raised some eyebrows.

Honda and Yamaha were tipped to be competitive, but few would have predicted the two Japanese marques locking out half of the top 10.

Several factors contributed to Friday’s unusual pecking order – here’s what we learned from Practice at Mandalika:

New tyre carcass gave some MotoGP riders and teams a headache

One of the biggest talking points on Friday was the new rear tyre – featuring a stiffer carcass – that Michelin brought to Lombok due to the unique demands of the Indonesia race.

This construction, last used at the season opener in Thailand, is markedly different from the tyres teams have run throughout the year.

“It’s a kind of tyre that prevents overheating due to the weather conditions and also the track layout,” Aprilia technical chief Fabiano Sterlacchini explained to Autosport on Thursday.

“The big impact that normally we have is the drop of the rear grip, and sometimes you can have a situation where during shifting [gears] on the main straight, the bike starts spinning without any reason.

“This is not normal at other tracks like for example Misano, Jerez and other tracks, where the grip level is quite normal.

“So in this context normally you should adjust everything keeping in account that you have something peculiar.”

In particular, riders found it harder to bring tyres up to temperature, forcing them to complete at least two warm-up laps before setting a flying lap.

“Especially the rear, it was really difficult just to get the tyre to work in the morning; it took like seven, eight, nine laps,” said Pramac’s Miguel Oliveira, who got through into Q2 in ninth.

“Then the tyre was actually getting better and better. [But in] my first outing to the track, I was almost crashing two, three times a lap during the first five laps. It was crazy. It was something I’ve never felt on the bike. I could not even push.

“It was very weird, and it will be the same throughout the weekend, once it’s the time to use the medium rear.”

A slow warm-up might complicate matters in qualifying, but also at the start of the race on Sunday.

Enea Bastianini, Red Bull KTM Tech 3

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

“The medium compared to the soft was very dangerous, especially the first three laps. After that, it was good,” said Tech3 KTM rider Enea Bastianini. “But on the first three laps, you need to be very careful, especially at Turn 7, on the right side.

“But with the soft, it was okay. I don’t know why, but with a tyre like this for the long distance, if we use the medium, it can be a problem for the first two, three laps.”

However, the impact of the new rear tyre was felt differently up and down the grid.

KTM’s Pedro Acosta, for instance, said he didn’t have to change his riding style much to adapt to the tyre carcass.

“There are tracks that are much trickier than this one. Like, it could be Austria,” he said. “The centre of the tyre is harder and you just try to not spend a lot of time in the centre because normally you have less grip than the sides. When [the tyre is] new, everything is normal. When it’s getting used, in the centre you normally have more spin there.”

Yamaha star Fabio Quartararo summed up the situation well when he said “some riders feel [the changes] more than others”.

“The tyre reacts in a way that is really unpredictable and this is why my pace was really slow and the pace of many riders that usually are very fast is slow,” he explained. “I ride super tense, so it didn’t feel great and it’s the feeling of many other riders that ride today.”

For the front tyre, teams will be able to choose between [symmetrical] soft, medium and hard compounds. While the soft tyre is the preferred option, opinion is split on whether it can go the full distance on Sunday or if riders will be forced to race with the less-favoured medium rubber.

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

Photo by: Sonny Tumbelaka / AFP via Getty Images

New world champion parties hard after wrapping up the title, gets further worn out by publicity events on subsequent days, then has to go and perform in a ‘dead rubber’ at a track he doesn’t like. In soul-sapping tropical heat. And voila, he makes rookie errors on his way to his worst Friday performance of the year.

The narrative writes itself so easily that you wonder if it can really be that simple. But while it’s never wise to make outright declarations on these matters, it certainly does seem a plausible explanation for the Marc we know going AWOL on the first day at Mandalika. After all, even his boss Gigi Dall’Igna rocked up at the track bearing the scars of a little overexuberance in a Lombok pool…

And if this dodgy day, which saw him fail to make it through to Q2 for the first time all season, was down to overindulgence, lack of sleep, an unfriendly track and the pressure being off… who are we to judge? Marc Marquez has certainly earned the right during the course of this season, never mind his illustrious nine-titles-and-counting career.

It is, however, worth pointing out that all the Ducatis struggled, with only the Gresini duo of Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer making it through. Not even the ‘back’ Francesco Bagnaia could crack the top 10. The lack of outright speed is perhaps understandable in that context, at least if you accept that Marc couldn’t or wouldn’t summon up his usual superpowers on the day.

The stranger moment, for a man whose capacity to process detail is world-beating, was seeing him absent-mindedly leave the pitlane and drive almost directly into a gravel trap. More than the numerous other off-track episodes or even the two crashes in practice, this was the one that suggested Marc wasn’t fully switched on.

It will be fascinating to see if the events of Friday will serve as any kind of wake-up call ahead of the rest of the weekend. But it certainly didn’t sound like it when he told media, “I want to get this weekend over with” at the end of the day.

Marc Marquez, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

A day of opportunity – but Saturday could be different

Combine a tricky tyre with a circuit that doesn’t exactly get a lot of action between MotoGP races and you have a day that was challenging even for the riders who were going quickly. The kind of day when nothing felt safe. Even Luca Marini, who hasn’t crashed all year, said he felt on the verge of crashing at every corner – on his way to fourth-fastest time!

Days like that tend to shake up the established order. There was Marc Marquez missing Q2, of course – but no less shocking in 2025 terms was Alex Rins getting through. Fellow Yamaha rider Oliveira also sprang a surprise by making the cut for the first time this season. It’s rare for Aldeguer to hit the ground running like this on a Friday too – second was his best opening day performance of 2025.

Aprilia has also been a bit slow getting up to speed early in the weekend this season, usually having to do a lot of set-up work on electronics given its data from last season has little relevance for the current bike. But with the conditions and the rubber making it a clean ballpark for all, that didn’t seem to be much of a factor at Mandalika. Bezzecchi was on the pace right away on Friday morning before blowing the field away after lunch.

All told, it was a day of opportunity for both general underdogs and Friday underdogs. There may be something in the idea that if you’re used to struggling, you’ll do well when everybody’s having difficulty. Marini’s factory Honda team-mate Joan Mir, for whom most of 2025 has been a battle, liked the notion when asked about it.

“Maybe that helps, probably, yes,” he said. “When you are used to [riding] with a bad feeling, once everyone has this bad feeling, probably you have an advantage. It sounds wild, but it’s a bit the reality.”

‘Wild’ is certainly an apt word. But things could well be a little more civil if the weather holds and the track continues to rubber in on Saturday. Taking the first representative laps on Friday morning as high 1m33s, the pace heated up by the better part of five seconds as the field laid a groove on Mandalika. Even between the end of first and second practice, the benchmark came down by over a second and a half.

Marco Bezzecchi, Aprilia Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

The Aprilia’s buffer alone tells you that this was not a normal day. It’s hard to imagine that Bezzecchi can hold on to a gap like he has on a Saturday that most riders expect to be a little more predictable.

But it’s not like what happens on Friday stays on Friday in modern MotoGP, does it? Even Marc Marquez could get caught out by the jungle of Q1. And the likes of Rins and Oliveira know they can start no lower than 12th unless they get penalties. So, even if a little normality returns on Saturday, the grid and races are still going to look a little unfamiliar this time around.

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– The Autosport.com Team