Reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia set the pace in MotoGP's single-day test at Misano after the San Marino Grand Prix, an outing that featured important trials of the in-development radio communications system and the prototype Michelin front tyre.
His title rival Jorge Martin had topped the morning session - which only really got going 90 minutes after the scheduled start time while riders waited for the track to dry from overnight rain - but Bagnaia was quicker in the afternoon, on a 1m30.619s (three tenths off his record-breaking pole from the weekend) - with Franco Morbidelli, Enea Bastianini and Pedro Acosta slotting in behind.
Bastianini and Martin - despite their impending Ducati exits - tried a new aero fairing, while Bagnaia focused on 2025 work.
There were crashes for Maverick Vinales and Alex Marquez.
Acosta, alongside future KTM team-mate Brad Binder, trialled the prototype KTM that Pol Espargaro had been racing at the Red Bull Ring and Misano.
"For sure it's quite different," said Binder. "The character of the bike is quite a bit different. It takes a little bit of time to get used to.
"Everything is a lot more calm. Like, it's super-super chill. It's so weird. Feels like it's not going anywhere, but then when you look, it is. So, yeah. Need to just get used to it."
The other KTM/Gas Gas regulars, Jack Miller and Augusto Fernandez, are leaving at the end of the season and due to limited bike availability only got half a day each.
But that was half a day more than for VR46 Ducati's Fabio Di Giannantonio, who elected to skip the test entirely to focus on rehabilitation of his left shoulder, dislocated in an Aragon crash.
Aprilia gave Raul Fernandez - the only rider staying in its camp in 2025 - "a lot of material to try", which seemingly included back-to-back tests between '24 and '23 machinery but also other work - with Fernandez delighted by the findings.
On Yamaha's side, Fabio Quartararo was an impressive fifth - but it was Alex Rins who sounded more positive.
In swapping to an engine spec he ran at Aragon but not in the San Marino GP, Rins reported that he had gained over half a second in race pace. "I felt a really big difference in terms of traction," he said.
Honda, which was missing its two factory riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini in Sunday's race through illness, had both back in action on Monday.
Marini - despite still being under the weather - mustered enough stamina to try a new "first prototype" aero arrangement and find it generally to his liking, as "a step for trying to make the bike turn better".
Mir - also not 100 percent - was much less positive. "Honestly, I expected much more," he said of his day, admitting that the aero was good enough to persevere with but lamenting the lack of a "revolution" on the RC213V.
Radio work continues
The test marked the latest step in MotoGP's ongoing development of a potential pit-to-rider radio comms solution, in the works for several years already.
Radio is being explored as both a safety measure - for race control to be able to warn riders about track surface contamination or crashes up ahead - and as a source of added entertainment value like in car racing.
Aprilia tester Lorenzo Savadori, Aprilia regular Aleix Espargaro and Quartararo tried out communication to their box on Monday.
"I couldn't hear," admitted Quartararo. "Still struggling - every step that we do [with it] is in a better direction, but with the full noise of the bike it's complicated to really hear. That's the difficult point for us.
"When there's a lot of noise on the straight I cannot hear anything. On the braking phase I can hear, but on the braking [already] you don't breathe, you try to be really focused.
"So we need to improve a little bit the audio volume."
Mixed-to-positive reception
With a new front tyre a high priority for MotoGP and its current supplier Michelin given the need to respond to recent years' bike developments, a half-hour window was picked out to test out a 2025 prototype version.
Tentatively, that has proven a success, though riders varied in their assessments.
"I love it," enthused Bagnaia. "It's something I really needed."
"Not bad," added Bastianini. "At the start, the feeling was a bit strange. Especially on the left side. But at the end the turning was good, was better compared to what we used.
"The changes of direction were much faster. Probably you have to follow [that] with some modifications to the bike. But... not bad!
"Also the braking is good. We can stop the bike in a short time."
Raul Fernandez was fond, too, highlighting the available grip.
"It's a completely different riding style, let's say," added Mir. "The tyre is working well. It straight away makes you feel okay - but you have to adapt a bit the set-up of the bike. It feels bigger - but it's not bigger."
But Rins found it "quite strange" - good on the changes of direction but "difficult" on corner entry. "I didn't like it so much! Maybe we need to work a little bit more."
"The first impression was not, like, wow - but it's something normal," said Alex Marquez. "In some areas was positive, in others much worse. Something to understand."
