Reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia was fastest on the penultimate day of MotoGP 2023 pre-season testing at Portimao, as Ducati and Aprilia continued to set the pace.
Bagnaia lapped just half a tenth of a second short of his own MotoGP lap record at the venue, taking over the top spot on the timesheets from a fellow Ducati rider – pre-season standout Luca Marini’s year-old VR46 Desmosedici GP22.
Both were at or towards the top of the times for virtually the entire day, with the two Italian brands Ducati and Aprilia virtually monopolising the top half of the leaderboards throughout.
In the Aprilia camp – which brought in several radical-looking winglets and wings for the test, maintaining its status as arguably MotoGP’s premier aero pioneer right now – Maverick Vinales was the fastest in third place, a quarter of a second down on Bagnaia and 0.020s down on Marini.
But Vinales, tipping off at the fast final corner, was among a large list of fallers on the day, with riders seemingly struggling to cope with the windy conditions and perhaps pushing particularly hard in preparation for the opening round at the same venue later this month.
Among the fallers besides Vinales were Pol Espargaro (Gas Gas), Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati), Marc Marquez (Honda), Enea Bastianini (Ducati), Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda), Raul Fernandez (RNF Aprilia), Joan Mir (Honda) and Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Ducati) – the latter having to go to hospital for a check-up.
Di Giannantonio’s team-mate Alex Marquez was fourth on the day, albeit over half a second behind Bagnaia, while RNF duo Fernandez and home hero Miguel Oliveira completed the top six.
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo lifted himself up to eighth late on, but was still a whopping 0.843s off the pace, at a track where he’d dominated last year. He and team-mate Franco Morbidelli were alone in reaching the 90-lap mark for the day.
But Quartararo was also the only rider not on an Italian bike in the top 10. Honda’s contingent was led by Alex Rins (LCR) in 11th, with its six-time champion Marc Marquez only 19th. Meanwhile, KTM was headed by Brad Binder in 15th.
Bastianini was a Ducati outlier in 17th, having had a mechanical stoppage in addition to a crash.
Session results
| Pos. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Pecco Bagnaia | Ducati | 1:38.771 | 78 | |
| 2 | Luca Marini | Ducati | 1:39.005 | 0.234 | 65 |
| 3 | Maverick Vinales | Aprilia | 1:39.025 | 0.254 | 88 |
| 4 | Alex Marquez | Ducati | 1:39.336 | 0.565 | 65 |
| 5 | Raul Fernandez | Aprilia | 1:39.460 | 0.689 | 64 |
| 6 | Miguel Oliveira | Aprilia | 1:39.466 | 0.695 | 75 |
| 7 | Marco Bezzecchi | Ducati | 1:39.608 | 0.837 | 76 |
| 8 | Fabio Quartararo | Yamaha | 1:39.614 | 0.843 | 90 |
| 9 | Fabio Di Giannantonio | Ducati | 1:39.641 | 0.870 | 50 |
| 10 | Jorge Martin | Ducati | 1:39.643 | 0.872 | 63* |
| 11 | Alex Rins | Honda | 1:39.646 | 0.875 | 77 |
| 12 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 1:39.648 | 0.877 | 60 |
| 13 | Johann Zarco | Ducati | 1:39.716 | 0.945 | 57 |
| 14 | Joan Mir | Honda | 1:39.776 | 1.005 | 74 |
| 15 | Brad Binder | KTM | 1:39.923 | 1.152 | 69 |
| 16 | Jack Miller | KTM | 1:39.987 | 1.216 | 58 |
| 17 | Enea Bastianini | Ducati | 1:40.009 | 1.238 | 52 |
| 18 | Stefan Bradl | Honda | 1:40.162 | 1.391 | 72 |
| 19 | Marc Marquez | Honda | 1:40.170 | 1.399 | 78 |
| 20 | Michele Pirro | Ducati | 1:40.336 | 1.565 | 70 |
| 21 | Franco Morbidelli | Yamaha | 1:40.414 | 1.643 | 95 |
| 22 | Pol Espargaro | Gas Gas | 1:40.507 | 1.736 | 64 |
| 23 | Takaaki Nakagami | Honda | 1:40.642 | 1.871 | 74 |
| 24 | Augusto Fernandez | Gas Gas | 1:40.771 | 2.000 | 72 |
* Pirro rode Martin’s bike for some laps
