The start of MotoGP's 'European season' is in 2025 - like in many years before - recognised as a major moment in the campaign, for reasons that go far beyond the artifice of borders and groupings by contintent.
The next 12 tracks that represent this 'European season' are not homogenous, yet a difference to what came before is keenly felt, in different weather, different Tarmac, different corner profiles and track sizes - and the tendency for these venues to be more often in use between grands prix relative to their 'overseas' counterparts.
"As I expected, we've arrived in Europe and the feeling changed, and the tracks changed, everything is more tight, narrow, and the way to push the bike is different," claimed Marc Marquez.
Yet the early indication is that the contrast between the preceding Qatar Grand Prix and this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix has not yielded a huge change in the pecking order or the championship picture, at least based on Friday running. Appropriately for the European season, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Here are five things we learned from the practice day at Jerez.
The record-setter is 'not happy'
At the conclusion of his particularly busy day Alex Marquez is in possession of the best-ever MotoGP lap at Jerez, and his brother Marc told MotoGP.com that he is "the strongest one" - especially on evidence of how quickly he bounced back from his red flag-triggering crash at the start of second practice.
As Alex said of that crash: "The best way to say sorry to the team is to be fast."
But both his brother and Pecco Bagnaia have also noticed that he was taking big risks on Friday - which is reflected in that Dry Sac crash mentioned above but also in a crash in the first session - and Alex himself admitted he doesn't feel he has that aspect totally nailed down yet.
"The main objective was to be in Q2, we did it quite well - but I'm not happy about the day. We broke the record, it's something good, but I'm not happy because we didn't do the job we needed to do. We didn't try a few set-up ideas, also not the tyres. I'm not happy for that.
"We need to control that risk a little bit. Fridays like this - OK, today didn't happen anything - but [they] can affect us for the championship."
Balance of power unchanged at works Ducati
Though Marc Marquez placed no higher than fourth at the end of practice, there seems to be an understanding among his rivals that he may have something more in terms of pace - which is not surprising given how he carved through the field in both Jerez races last year.
Bagnaia had those races on his brain coming into the weekend. He has won the last three Spanish Grands Prix, but seemed to be playing down his position relative to his team-mate on Thursday - and his view of things was no different on Friday.
Though Ducati has parked or outright discarded many of the 2025-spec bits it had prepared for this season, the factory riders' bikes are still new-ish - and Bagnaia indicated that he hasn't been able to exploit his strong points at the track the way he could last eyar.
Those strong points are the right-handers of Turn 5 and Turn 9, named after Sito Pons and Angel Nieto respectively.
Bagnaia needs something else on the "technical" side to feel fully in tune with this version of the Ducati - and hopes to have it in the test after the race on Monday. That doesn't mean the weekend is hopeless - it's not necessarily different to Qatar.
"I just hope that tomorrow I will not do the same mistake as I did in Qatar qualifying," he said. "I think the potential is to fight for top three positions, to fight for the win, but we need to do another little step tomorrow morning."
Quartararo can be a factor
Ducati looks untouchable at Jerez - as Maverick Vinales pointed out, the tighter corners at Jerez really unleash its dominance compared to the wider, longer corners at Lusail - yet Quartararo's performance on Friday caught Bagnaia's eye, and it stands to reason he might well be first in line to pick off any Ducati 'stragglers'.
He had a silly crash during the pre-qualifying runs of second practice, yet carried on with the same bike - with damage to the winglets and dodgy handling - and placed an easy fifth. Considering Jerez was bad for him last year and doesn't offer the kind of grip level Quartararo believes the M1 needs to fully thrive, it is - in his own words - "not really logical".
But there's recognition from his Yamaha peers - Alex Rins and Augusto Fernandez - that he's doing something special in how much he's using the front on corner entry, and this is one track where exploiting that to the maximum over a qualifying lap can then set up Quartararo for a really good race - just because of how hard it is to overtake.
And, in a more general sense, the early-season picture in which Quartararo's Yamaha supremacy was being threatened by Jack Miller (who wasn't slow today but had a costly crash) already feels like a long, long time ago.
Vinales' renaissance over? Not necessarily
The Vinales stereotype is that he can be first one weekend and 20th the other without it being particularly unusual - but it's too early to submit Lusail-Jerez into evidence.
Vinales - whose bike balance is now being used as a cue by Brad Binder as the KTM regular seeks to repair his start to the season - looked there or thereabout as the lead KTM for the vast majority of the Friday.
Pedro Acosta is in Q2 directly and Vinales isn't, but chances are both would've been in the top 10 had Vinales not had an apparent technical issue with the rear of the bike that forced him to pull over and abandon his most important run.
How he fares in the Q1 melee on Saturday will be a big test, but there's nothing at all yet to suggest the Lusail form will just disappear.
Aprilia in a holding pattern
“You see, we don’t even have one Aprilia in the top 10," noted Raul Fernandez, and truthfully he never really looked in the mix - though stablemate Marco Bezzecchi did, before stumbling into some yellow flags on his final run.
But both Bezzecchi and Fernandez feel limited by a lack of stability in qualifying trim, while rookie Ai Ogura - who has often been Aprilia's sole shining light over one lap in 2025 - is suddenly lacking faith in the front again.
In this situation, it sure would be nice to have Jorge Martin - who is finally flying from Qatar to Madrid on Saturday, but whose timeline for a return from injury remains very murky.
You'd back Martin to either overcome the single-lap deficiences of the RS-GP - or at least to put them into sharper focus.
The Honda upgrade underwhelms
Aleix Espargaro wasn't hugely competitive - nor massively uncompetitive - on his return to MotoGP action, but then again he reckons to have expected anything else would've been folly given he no longer rides regularly nor trains like a MotoGP full-timer.
Honda doesn't need him to score big points this weekend, or any weekends. Honda does need its new engine that Espargaro is running this weekend to deliver an extra kick of power, though, and according to him the evidence from Friday was not too encouraging.
"We're trying to give them [the regular riders] more torque, and unfortunately the result today wasn't the one that we were expecting - yet," he admitted.
Top speed has been a major limitation for the Hondas this year - and in the speed trap on the main straight Espargaro was the slowest Honda in first practice, and the second-slowest Honda in second practice, though that data is deceptive.
"I have to say that I have part of fault because the speed sensor in this circuit is quite close to the corner and I was not braking at the same level of Johann [Zarco] and Joan [Mir] in the morning. I improved a little bit in the afternoon," he explained.
"But anyway it's not just about the braking - the engine performance, we were expecting something more, really. Back in Japan, on the dyno, the numbers of the engine look promising, but on track we are missing something. We are working, we are trying different things and hopefully tomorrow we can test something else to see if the engine is better."
