The Ducati rider sets the pace in the opening practice session of the Malaysian Grand Prix, finishing ahead of Bezzecchi and Acosta. Jorge Martin makes his comeback despite a wrist injury, while Francesco Bagnaia struggles outside the top ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marc Marquez made an impressive start to the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend, dominating the opening free practice session at Sepang. The Ducati rider immediately established himself as the man to beat, setting a fastest lap of 1:58.912 and becoming the only rider to break the 1:59 barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Spaniard looked comfortable aboard his Desmosedici from the opening minutes, posting his benchmark lap early in the session. Despite several attempts from his rivals, nobody managed to seriously challenge his time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marco Bezzecchi and Pedro Acosta finished second and third, both 0.474 seconds behind Marquez. The Aprilia and KTM riders were followed by Enea Bastianini in fourth, while Brad Binder and Franco Morbidelli completed the top six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a more difficult morning for Francesco Bagnaia, who could only manage 13th place. The Italian will need to find additional pace in the upcoming sessions to challenge the leading riders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the main talking points of the opening session was the return of Jorge Martin. The Aprilia rider was back on track just days after suffering a fracture to his right wrist during the Sprint race at Phillip Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having passed the initial medical examination, the Spaniard took part in FP1 to assess his physical condition and regain confidence aboard the RS-GP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martin completed 12 laps and finished 20th, 1.835 seconds behind Marquez. Although his performance was inevitably affected by the injury, he managed to complete his planned running without major complications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A further medical assessment confirmed that the Aprilia rider was fit to continue the weekend, an important development in the championship battle, with Martin trailing Marquez by just ten points in the standings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The session was briefly interrupted following a technical problem involving Iker Lecuona’s Gresini Ducati. The Spaniard, replacing the injured Fermin Aldeguer, suffered an issue with his motorcycle’s front mudguard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The damaged component left debris scattered across the circuit, prompting race control to display the red flag while marshals cleared the track. Lecuona returned safely to the pits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Raul Fernandez’s Malaysian Grand Prix weekend came to an early end. The Trackhouse Aprilia rider, still recovering from a fractured finger on his right hand, struggled particularly under braking and was subsequently declared medically unfit to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite Marquez’s commanding advantage, the opening practice results may not fully reflect the competitive order at Sepang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most riders concentrated on evaluating medium and hard tyre compounds rather than attempting outright qualifying laps on the softer rear tyre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the afternoon Practice session determining direct access to Q2, significant improvements in lap times are expected as teams switch their attention towards outright performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, Marquez has already delivered a strong statement of intent, showing impressive speed and confidence around one of the championship’s most physically demanding circuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Martin, the immediate priority remains managing his recovery while limiting the points lost to his championship rival. With only ten points separating the two Spaniards, every session could prove crucial in the fight for the 2026 MotoGP world title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ducati rider sets the pace in the opening practice session of the Malaysian Grand Prix, finishing ahead of Bezzecchi and Acosta. Jorge Martin makes his comeback despite a wrist injury, while Francesco Bagnaia struggles outside the top ten. Marc Marquez made an impressive start to the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend, dominating the opening free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motogp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2307,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305\/revisions\/2307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}