Jorge Martin tops the first day of 2024 MotoGP pre-season test

Jorge Martin set a solid early fastest lap time as the official pre-season test for the 2024 MotoGP World Championship season officially kicked off at the Sepang Circuit.

Pramac’s Jorge Martin was the only rider to finish sub 1m 58s with a lap of 1m 57. 951s topping the timesheets as the 2023 MotoGP runner-up was hardly challenged over the course of the eight-hour session.

Rookie Pedro Acosta came in closest to the leader with a time of 1m 58.220sec on the Red Bull GasGas Factory Tech 3 KTM. Whilst the Spaniard’s speed compared to the Prima Pramac Ducati GP24 was perhaps expected, there were still some noteworthy observations to be made this early.

According to the new regulations, the rookie had an extra three days of track time, and it paid off as he neared his personal best of 1 minute, 58.189 seconds set last week.

Third-place finisher Fabio Quartararo impressed on the Monster Energy Yamaha M1, on which he had two more days of testing on the previous week.

Nevertheless, the highlight of the Frenchman’s performance came after his M1 recorded the fourth fastest speed through the traps, which was 4 km/h quicker than his performance during the Malaysian MotoGP race weekend.

Six of Ducati’s Desmosedicis, including new signing Marc Marquez, broke into the top ten by the flag during the afternoon, turning what appeared to be a somewhat dismal start to the manufacturer’s testing program.

VR46 Racing’s Fabio di Giannantonio and Factory Ducati’s Enea Bastianini were in excellent form as they came in fourth and fifth respectively.

Maverick Vinales finished the first day of testing in sixth place, leading the Aprilia challenge after showing significant improvement before lunch. Meanwhile, the Marquez brothers delivered Gresini Racing a good start, finishing seventh and ninth after making late improvements.

However, the Gresini duo suffered minor crashes (Alex at Turn 12 and Marc at Turn 15), as the six-time MotoGP World Champion also suffered two technical mishaps which caused him to languish near the bottom of the timesheets upto the final minutes of the session.

Marco Bezzecchi, who was among several riders who suffered minor crashes during the day, split the Gresini duo in seventh place. Similar to Marquez, he started off near the bottom of the timesheets before shooting up into the top ten in the final minutes of the action, although he crashed at Turn 4 to wrap up his day.

Honda had a lackluster start to the year as LCR’s Johann Zarco was the only rider making it into the top ten, narrowly ahead of Yamaha’s Alex Rins.

KTM’s start to the 2024 MotoGP was silent for the team riders besides Acosta. Brad Binder’s late surge was only good enough for 12th, while Jack Miller, arguably the most proactive rider of the day with 69 laps, could only finish in 18th after crashing in the closing moments of the session.

In a similar vein Pecco Bagnaia chose not to pursue lap times, finishing the day in 16th place. During his first out-lap of the session, the reigning champion slipped off at Turn 11, thereby setting off a dismal start to his campaign.

More dramatically, he was followed into the gravel trap by Raul Fernandez who minutes into the team’s inaugural MotoGP session, gave Trackhouse Racing a major repair task when he high-sided severely.

Fernandez spent some time in the medical center after the session was halted to assess the condition of the treacherous right-hand corner, but he eventually returned to the track to finish the session.

2024 MotoGP Official Pre-Season Testing Results Sepang Day 1 of 3