Marc Marquez (Ducati Lenovo Team) enjoyed a perfect start to his PETRONAS Grand Prix of Malaysia after the World Championship leader set the only 1:58 lap of the session to lead Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia Racing) and Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) by 0.474s. The duo set the exact same time to finish FP1 just under half a second away from the #93’s 1:58.912, but that wasn’t the biggest story of the opening session in Sepang.
The main focus? Jorge Martin’s (Aprilia Racing) progress. Team Manager Paolo Bonora explained the 2024 World Champion, "expected to feel worse", with the plan being not to push too much and save energy for Practice later this afternoon. It’s early doors, of course, but that’s great news going into this afternoon for the rider just 10 points off Marc Marquez in the title chase. At the end of play in FP1, Martin completed 12 laps and sits 1.8s off the summit heading into this afternoon’s one-hour Practice stint, six days after suffering a non-displaced fracture of the distal radius. Incredible.
Enea Bastianini (Red Bull KTM Tech3) and Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) handed KTM a great start to their weekend in Malaysia by sticking their RC16s inside the top five in P4 and P5, while it was Franco Morbidelli (Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team) and last year’s Malaysian GP winner, Alex Marquez (BK8 Gresini Racing MotoGP), who were the only other riders to get within a second of Marc Marquez’s FP1 pace.
Elsewhere, Raul Fernandez’s (SuperFile Trackhouse MotoGP Team) weekend is over after the Spaniard was declared unfit after a review during FP1. Fernandez will now head back to Spain for some thorough treatment in order to try to be fit for the upcoming Qatar GP.