MotoGP test – The Italian Bezzecchi was the fastest on the first day

At the very end of the day, the fastest time was 1’58.470 seconds Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team), who managed to reach the very top of the leaderboard. The Italian completed 55 laps on the day and was 0.130 seconds faster than second in the standings Maverick Vinales (Aprilia Racing Team). The Spaniard in the seat of the Aprilia prototype had a very fast lap also at the very end, but the last fourth sector did not go well for him and he is second

He ran the timekeeper for a while Aeneas Bastianini (Ducati Lenovo Team), whose maximum today was 1’58.732 seconds. The Italian racer is new to the factory Ducati stable, but continues the set pace he showed last year at Gresini. Only five thousandths behind Bastianini is fourth George Martin (Prima Pramac Racing). The Spaniard was also on top of the clock, eventually losing 0.267 seconds to the best time of the day. He rounded out the top five fastest Francis Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) who lost 0.387 seconds to the first.

He is sixth with a time of 1’58.941 seconds Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia Racing), who tested several Aprilia prototypes together with Viňales during the day. He is seventh in the ranking Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac Racing), eighth Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Racing), ninth Alex Márquez (Gresini Racing) and closed the top ten with a loss of 0.648 seconds Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team). His teammate, the eleventh Fabio Gutararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team), said after Friday’s test: “It was a challenging day, especially in the morning, because we used some tires that didn’t suit me very well, especially the soft front. But today we tried a lot of things. Some were positive, such as the fact that top speed has improved in particular. But there is still a lot to test and we have two more days ahead of us. Tomorrow we will use the tires better and see what we can do. Not bad for the first day. Tomorrow we will work more on aerodynamics and I think it will be much more intense.”

In the top ten we have seven Ducatis, two Aprilias and one Yamaha. The supremacy of Ducati is visible, so for the other manufacturers motivation for the next two days. Anyway, he’s eleventh in one second on first Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP), twelfth Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda Team) and thirteenth Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team).

“It was a really challenging day where we tried a lot of different things, as we usually do before the season,” he said Marc Márquezwhich had three prototypes available. “We first started on the 2022 bike to confirm the feeling and then we switched straight to the new bikes. We tested several bikes and their different setups and gained a lot of interesting information and data that the engineers and technicians now have to analyze. We’ll see what the situation is at the end of the pre-season, it’s only been one day so far so it’s very early to understand anything. Right now we’re trying different things and working hard, that’s where the testing comes from.”

“Today was a challenging day because we had a lot planned for Sepang testing,” he revealed Pol Espargaro (GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3), who had the twentieth time of 2’00.078 seconds. “Also, I have to adapt to the way the Pierer Mobility Group works because it is different. There are a lot of new engineers coming in who rely a lot more on analytics and numbers and I will have to get used to those changes. As for the bike itself, we had one new and one older one in Valencia, mainly because I wanted to ride the older one without thinking too much. Here we have two new and completely different bikes. The character of the engine and chassis has changed, and we have also tested some aerodynamic parts. However, we have not yet decided which of them we will use. We have two important days of testing ahead of us, so we are focused on that.”

Test MotoGP – 1
Friday, 10.2. 2023 – Sepang (MAL)

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Petr Czyz – (Subscribe to the author’s articles)