Bagnaia dealt blow as first day of MotoGP 2025 practice ends

Alex Marquez ended the first day of MotoGP 2025 race weekend action in Thailand on top, as Pecco Bagnaia missed out on a crucial top 10 spot.

Key moments:

• Marquez brothers in the lead
• Bagnaia impeded by fellow VR46 protege
• Hondas and Aprilias impress

Bagnaia found the going generally difficult but should've still had enough pace to secure a good position in the end, but his best lap - good enough for eighth-fastest - was deleted due to yellow flags caused by an as-yet-undetermined culprit, and he then came up on a cruising Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) on his final push.

The hour-long session - or more precisely its final 20 minutes - marked the unofficial first 'qualifying' of the season given the top 10 riders were granted direct passage into Saturday's pole shootout, meaning everyone was incentivised to give it their all for the first time in 2025.

And while Marc Marquez had led most of the session, at the end of those final minutes it was his brother Alex sniping the top spot away by 0.052s with a 1m29.020s lap.

Directly to Q2

A Marquez
M Marquez
Acosta
Bezzecchi
Morbidelli
Mir
Fernandez
Quartararo
Ogura
Zarco

The two brothers are running a more similar spec than planned, with the elder Marquez - along with Bagnaia and Fabio Di Giannantonio - running the 2024-spec engine and chassis instead of the 2025 version as had been planned.

Pedro Acosta showed KTM's low-key testing form was largely a mirage by completing the top three a quarter of a second behind the Marquez brothers.

Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) crashed late on at Turn 3, but just before then had set a solid lap that gave him fourth place, while Morbidelli completed the top five - but is likely to be in trouble with the stewards.

Bezzecchi won't be the only Aprilia representative in Q2. Despite champion signing Jorge Martin's injury absence, three RS-GPs made it into the top 10, with Raul Fernandez seventh despite his own injury-compromised pre-season and rookie Ai Ogura, Fernandez's Trackhouse team-mate, a phenomenal ninth.

Slotting in between them was Fabio Quartararo, who was the sole Yamaha rider to make the top 10.

Honda, however, is already confirmed as having at least two Q2 representatives - with Joan Mir sixth and Johann Zarco 10th, the new RC213V seemingly on song within the stop-start confines of the Buriram circuit.

In Q1

Vinales
Binder
Bagnaia
Miller
Di Giannantonio
Marini
Rins
Oliveira
Bastianini
Aldeguer
Chantra
Savadori

Maverick Vinales' 30-round streak of always making Q2 through Friday ended on his first appearance with Tech3 KTM, though he was not far off salvaging it - just a tenth behind Zarco and narrowly ahead of Brad Binder for the claim of second-best KTM behind Acosta.

Besides Quartararo, Jack Miller was the only Yamaha rider who looked in with a real shot at Q2, despite a crash earlier in the session - but the Pramac returnee ultimately came up short in 14th.