Aprilia Racing’s Maverick Viñales has set the early pace at the Official Valencia Test as plenty of premier class stars made thier debuts on brand-new machines. The Spaniard’s new Aprilia stablemate Miguel Oliveira (RNF MotoGP Team) currently sits eighth on the timesheets and is the fastest of the men to have switched factories.
In a positive start to 2023 for the Noale factory, Aleix Espargaro made it an Aprilia Racing 1-2 by sitting 0.073 seconds adrift of his teammate in second. Second of Aprilia’s new signings, Raul Fernandez, currently sits 20th overall and 1.8 seconds adrift after his first laps on the 2022 RS-GP.
Third on the timesheets is Prima Pramac Racing’s Jorge Martin, ahead of Ducati Lenovo Team new boy Enea Bastianini. The Beast enjoying his first taste of the 2022 Ducati Desmosedici before testing some 2023 items in the closing stages of the morning session. In a top ten dominated by Ducati, Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) currently holds the final spot inside the top five, ahead of Johann Zarco, who was spotted testing an Aprilia-style high downforce side fairing on his Prima Pramac Ducati.
There’s a lot of intrigue surrounding the Repsol Honda box for obvious reasons as HRC rolled out a 2023 prototype and 2020 World Champion Joan Mir made his debut for the famous outfit. Marc Marquez is seventh at the halfway stage, 0.351 seconds away from Viñales, and Mir is 1.2 seconds off in 18th. Marquez has three bikes in his garage and was spotted testing a new carbon clutch along with plenty of other 2023 items. HRC’s second Suzuki swoop, Alex Rins, in 21st and 1.4 seconds adrift.
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Brad Binder is tenth on the timesheets after continuing work on the new chassis that helped him secure second at the season finale over the weekend. KTM’s 2023 seat unit and exhaust system has been spotted as well as the Austrian brand look to improve the turning of their RC16. Australian Jack Miller officially made his orange return earlier in the day and finds himself 19th at lunch. Tech3 GASGAS Factory Racing’s new duo Pol Espargaro and rookie Augusto Fernandez have been hard at work on the RC16 too, with Espargaro heard telling crew chief Paul Trevathan “I love it”, following his first runs back onboard KTM’s challenger.
Yamaha’s quest to regain the MotoGP™ World Championship is underway and nobody did more laps throughout the morning than Fabio Quartararo. Three different bikes were spotted in the Monster Energy Yamaha box for the Frenchman as he continued work on the much-talked-about 2023 Yamaha M1 engine. Yamaha were also seen trying a much larger aerodynamics package, similar to what we’ve seen on the KTM RC16 this season.
Newly-crowned World Champion Pecco Bagnaia had a steady morning, setting the fewest laps of anyone, and is 14th following the first four hours of track action. The final four hours of track action in 2022 gets back underway at 14:30 local time in Valencia, with coverage continuing on motogp.com.