Ducati and Aprilia on top on day one of MotoGP 2023 testing

Ducati and Aprilia accounted for the entirety of the top nine on the official opening day of MotoGP 2023 pre-season testing at Sepang.

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The start of the test followed on from a three-day shakedown at the same venue – featuring the various test riders and the 2023 grid’s sole rookie, Augusto Fernandez – and, much like the shakedown, Friday’s running was impacted by rain.

A light but significant enough rainfall enforced what seemed like an extended mid-day break, but the final lap counts were still well in line with convention.

Pramac Ducati’s lap record holder Jorge Martin led coming into that unofficial rain break, and for a significant spell after, but was usurped by Enea Bastianini – the rider who beat him in a head-to-head for a factory Ducati bike last year – by 0.005s.

But VR46 sophomore rider Marco Bezzecchi – who had a crash earlier in the day – then jumped a quarter of a second ahead of both with just 11 minutes left on the clock, the Italian campaigning a GP22 this year versus Martin and Bastianini on GP23s – although the bikes are said to be very similar to start off the year.

In the closing minutes, Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales prevented a Ducati 1-2-3-4 in the final classification by jumping to second place, 0.130s behind Bezzecchi.

Ducati’s reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia completed the top five, while the likes of Johann Zarco (Pramac), Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini) and Alex Marquez (Gresini) further down the order made it an imposing seven Ducatis in the top nine.

Bezzecchi’s benchmark of 1m58.470s was a tenth off what Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro had managed in the corresponding session in pre-season testing last year.

And while team-mate Vinales was particularly satisfied with the early signs from the 2023 RS-GP bike – saying it had no negatives relative to the predecessor and was an improvement in terms of cornering – Espargaro, sixth-fastest on the day, was more reserved, saying he was still eyeing a bigger step forward in terms of power.

This, he hopes, will come when Aprilia brings the engine it expects to race this year at a later date in the pre-season.

That step forward looks to have come on Yamaha’s side, the new engine performing well in the speed traps through the day, with Franco Morbidelli completing the top 10 in the timing screens, three tenths up on his 11th-placed team-mate Fabio Quartararo.

Marc Marquez had several Honda prototypes to sample and was ultimately 12th-fastest, a few tenths up on Honda newcomers Joan Mir and Alex Rins.

On KTM’s side of things, new recruit Jack Miller recorded the fastest time but was only 16th, 1.356s off the pace. The new Tech3 Gas Gas duo, rookie Fernandez and Pol Espargaro, were both reported as having crashed by their team – but did place narrowly ahead of factory rider Brad Binder.

Session results