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Motorsport

Sport

Alex Marquez tops Barcelona MotoGP test as Marc makes factory Ducati debut

Alex Marquez Ducati MotoGP Marc Marquez Barcelona Francesco Bagnaia Jorge Martin KTM Enea Bastianini Fabio Quartararo

Gresini rider Alex Marquez set the pace in the post-season MotoGP test in Barcelona on Tuesday, as his elder brother Marc Marquez completed his first outing with the factory Ducati team.

The younger Marquez led the times for the majority of the seven-hour session at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya after jumping to the top of the leaderboard early on with a 1m40.006s flier.

New factory KTM rider Pedro Acosta enjoyed a brief stint at the front in the morning, before two-time MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia moved to the top with a 1m39.398s in the third hour.

Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo then dispatched Bagnaia from the lead, before the younger Marquez clocked the circuit in 1m38.803s in the fourth hour to wrest back the control.

Although the Spaniard damaged his new GP24 bike with a crash at Turn 7 in the penultimate hour, his previous time remained unbeaten as the track rapidly cooled up in the evening.

Quartararo was also able to hold on to second place on his Yamaha M1 courtesy of his earlier effort of 1m39.199s, which put him 0.396s down on Marquez's time.

Bagnaia finished a further two tenths adrift in third, as he tried three different Desmosedici bikes over the course of the day. The Italian not only had his race-winning GP24 bike and the 2025-spec GP25 at his disposal but also a hybrid of the two machines available to test in Barcelona.

Marc Márquez, Ducati Team (Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images)

He took part in the test with his old bike number, 63, having ceded the right to use the #1 plate after losing the 2024 title to Jorge Martin last weekend.

One of the biggest headliners of the day was Marc Marquez, who made his debut with Ducati's factory squad as Bagnaia's team-mate after a year racing for the satellite Gresini team.

The six-time MotoGP champion tallied up a total of 49 laps on Tuesday, jumping to fourth on the leaderboard with 15 minutes left on the clock with a late effort of 1m39.454s.

Like new team-mate Bagnaia, Marquez also had different specifications of the Desmosedici available to test, but hit the track for the first time with the new GP25 that he will be racing in 2025.

His bike was painted in a bright shade of red and carried little sponsorship branding, much like his race suit.

Behind, Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez was the top Aprilia runner in fifth, while Brad Binder leapt up to sixth with a late improvement on his factory KTM.

Franco Morbidelli finished seventh on his first day with VR46, the team owned by his mentor Valentino Rossi, beating the Yamaha of Alex Rins by 0.003s.

Acosta rounded out his first day with KTM's main squad in ninth place, while LCR rider Johann Zarco was the top Honda rider in 10th.

Newly crowned MotoGP champion Martin made a much-awaited debut with Aprilia on Tuesday morning, testing the waters with its race-winning 2024-spec RS-GP before switching to its new prototype later in the day.

Apart from a slow low-side crash at Turn 5, Martin's day went largely smoothly as he tallied up 77 laps, ending up 11th with his best time being just over a second down on Alex Marquez.

Jorge Martín, Aprilia Racing (Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images)

New Tech3 KTM signing Maverick Vinales finished 12th quickest, but his new team-mate Enea Bastianini destroyed an RC16 with a crash at Turn 5 at the start of hour six.

Bastianini was able to complete the test on a spare bike, finishing 16th out of 24 runners.

Barcelona also saw recently-retired Aleix Espargaro make his first appearance as a test rider for Honda, ending up 14th on the board and ahead of HRC's Joan Mir.

The fastest rookie of the day was Gresini's Fermin Aldeguer in 20th place, one spot ahead of Trackhouse's Ai Ogura and two positions clear of LCR rider Somkiat Chantra.

All three riders suffered crashes in the first three hours of running, but were able to recover and gain important mileage as they began preparations for 2025.

VR46 rider Fabio di Giannantonio, who will be one of the three riders to race with the new Ducati GP25 in 2025, was again absent from action as he continues to recover from surgery.

He was effectively replaced by Ducati tester Michele Pirro, who also trialled a new two-way radio communication system that Dorna has been working on.

Photos from Barcelona test

Pos.	Rider	Team	Time/GAp	LAPS
1	Alex Marquez	Gresini Racing	1'38"803	61
2	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha MotoGP	+0"396	75
3	Pecco Bagnaia	Ducati Team	+0"595	56
4	Marc Marquez	Ducati Team	+0"651	49
5	Raul Fernandez	Trackhouse Racing	+0"668	82
6	Brad Binder	KTM Factory Racing	+0"705	62
7	Franco Morbidelli	VR46 Racing Team	+0"762	52
8	Alex Rins	Yamaha MotoGP	+0"765	70
9	Pedro Acosta	KTM Factory Racing	+0"768	62
10	Johann Zarco	Honda LCR	+0"813	65
11	Jorge Martín	Aprilia Racing	+1"056	77
12	Maverick Vinales	KTM Tech3	+1"084	74
13	Marco Bezzecchi	Aprilia Racing	+1"192	84
14	Aleix Espargaro	Honda Test Team	+1"204	50
15	Joan Mir	Repsol Honda	+1"267	67
16	Enea Bastianini	KTM Tech 3	+1"279	55
17	Miguel Oliveira	Pramac Racing	+1"335	60
18	Luca Marini	Repsol Honda	+1"429	55
19	Michele Pirro	VR46 Racing Team	+1"683	69
20	Fermin Aldeguer	Gresini Racing	+1"761	58
21	Ai Ogura	Trackhouse Racing	+2"143	86
22	Jack Miller	Pramac Racing	+2"222	71
23	Somkiat Chantra	Honda LCR	+2"492	61
24	Lorenzo Savadori	Test team Aprilia	+9"793	13