The first official MotoGP test has concluded, and the question is: did it tell us anything we didn’t think we were going to be told? The answer can only be: not really.
The Ducatis were fast; the Aprilias too. The KTMs were underwhelming and the Yamahas even more so, while the Hondas showed continued progress. So, shades of recent seasons.
Perhaps the most revealing thing was the speed of the Ducatis and, more specifically, the satisfaction of Pecco Bagnaia. It is, by now, well known that the 2025 Ducati Desmosedici engine was nowhere near as rideable as the 2024 version, unless you had the mercurial talent of Marc Marquez. Bagnaia simply couldn’t get it to work to his liking, while all the riders on 2024-spec Ducatis made hay.
In the latest test, the engines used by the Ducati riders were an amalgamation of 2024 and 2025 engines, much to Bagnaia’s pleasure; all the benefits of 2024 with the good bits of 2025, such as they were. This engine propelled Ducati to five of the top six final placings in the test, the only interloper being Bezzecchi’s Aprilia.
This all could make 2026 a very good season for close racing; all Ducatis on the grid – GP26s for the factory team, Alex Marquez and VR46’s Fabio DiGiannantonio and GP25s for Frankie Morbidelli and Fermin Aldeguer – will essentially be running the GP24 engine in the GP25/6 chassis, which is the best engine in the best chassis on the grid; if only that fact will promote close racing! Mind you, imagine what Marc Marquez can do with a better engine than the one he dominated 2025 with…?
While engine development is frozen for this final year of the 990cc formula, aerodynamic and ride-height tweaking continues apace, and it is this that could make all the difference in 2026, with bikes even less able to follow one another closely. Ducati were testing no fewer than four different aero packages, one of which, like the engine, has to be chosen before the first race, whereafter it is set in stone for the season.
Marquez appeared to favour the 2025 aero package, while Alex Marquez and Bagnaia were favouring the 2024 aero, which, for Bagnaia at least, gave the stability under braking he was so sorely lacking in 2025.
Jorge Lorenzo was trackside throughout the test and made this observation: “In the corners, you can see that the Ducati is so smooth, so electric, especially in the exit of the corners, they are so smooth in the maximum lean angle with 20% throttle. But also, when they pick up, they keep this smoothness for a very long time. The other bikes look very nervous.” Not what the other teams want to be hearing, but it must be music to Bagnaia’s ears. Mind you, he took pole position and a Sprint race win at the same track last year, so he obviously likes this circuit. The only way to know if the testing smiles were a flash in the pan will be to wait for the next official test in Thailand, just before the first race at the same circuit.
At the other end of the performance spectrum was Yamaha; not only slow, but slow and unreliable was the new V4 engine. Unreliable enough to cause the manufacturer to cancel all of Wednesday’s running, thanks to an unspecified problem that was apparently solved, allowing the team to resume testing. It hardly mattered, as the fastest Yamaha by the end was Rins in 14th.
None of this will do Yamaha’s chances of retaining Fabio Quartararo any good. All parties denied that a deal had already been inked between Quartararo and Honda, just as Acosta and Ducati denied that any deal had been finalised, and you could always insist that there is no smoke without fire, but the simple fact is that we won’t know for a couple of weeks, before the first race of the season at the end of February.
Not that there is any guarantee that announcements will be made before that date, but it appears to be taken for granted that they will, as many riders want the issue out of the way before the campaign gets underway and want to bag the best seats ahead of everyone else.
A lot of eyes were on reigning World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu as he made his competitive debut on the Pramac Yamaha. Despite commentators claiming that he would be a revelation, he himself downplayed his chances in this, his first season, not only in MotoGP, but also on Michelin tyres. Next year, MotoGP switches to Pirelli, a brand that Razgatlioglu is completely familiar with, having ridden on them in WSBK for many years, and it is hoped that this will be his chance to shine, both in developing the Yamaha to work on them and in the races. Time alone will tell, but for now, he is desperately trying to adapt his riding style to the MotoGP prototypes.
“It’s not easy for me to see myself so low in the standings, especially after my time in Superbikes,” he said. “This morning, I followed Alex Marquez and saw him riding very smoothly, but I can’t do that. I’ll probably struggle in the first five races.”
The who-will-ride-where-in-2027 rumour mill continued to grind out stories, the latest being that Alex Marquez could be on a factory KTM, replacing potentially Ducati-bound Acosta. Mind you, he has a GP26 this year with Gresini and, should that continue to prove to be effective, would he want to leave? A factory ride is the holy grail of any rider, but when you have a winning factory bike in a small, familiar and friendly team, with an offer for 2027 on the table, would a factory KTM be enough? Again, we come back to the unknowable performance of every manufacturer’s 850cc bike in 2027; a move to KTM could be a masterstroke of opportunism, or it could be a disaster, as could staying with Ducati!
Forget risking it all on track; it’s in the boardrooms that the real danger lies!
