MotoGP Japan, Practice: Record-breaking Alex Marquez, nightmare for Bagnaia

Ducati number 73 tops pre-qualifying at Motegi, the top three riders are within a tenth: Ogura and Bagnaia disappoint, both in Q1.

After FP1 that weren’t very meaningful due to the track’s peculiar conditions, with half the session essentially useless, in the afternoon Practice session the MotoGP riders found ideal conditions to understand Motegi’s new asphalt and carry out the normal work program.

The fastest of all was Alex Marquez in 1'42"811, a new lap record. The BK8 Gresini rider was 76 thousandths ahead of Pedro Acosta’s KTM and one tenth ahead of Marc Marquez’s Ducati. The best Aprilia was Marco Bezzecchi’s, who set the fourth-fastest time ahead of a fantastic Enea Bastianini in fifth with the Tech3 team’s KTM.

After less than 10 minutes, a red flag was triggered by a technical failure on Ogura’s Aprilia, which dropped oil on the track: interventions were needed to make the asphalt safe before resuming action. In the SuperFile Trackhouse garage, they’ll need to understand what went wrong with the Japanese rider’s RS-GP26—particularly eager to do well at his home Grand Prix—but he was then unable to go beyond 15th place in pre-qualifying.

Both Ogura and Raul Fernandez will have to face Q1 in Qualifying at Motegi. The SuperFile Trackhouse team was not up to the factory Aprilia team today, but there’s still time to improve the situation.

There’s new asphalt at Motegi, a factor that inevitably influenced the tire choices Michelin made for the Japanese Grand Prix. Piero Taramasso spoke about it on Sky Sport MotoGP: "Up front we have the same three solutions as last year, because we know they cover all temperature and load scenarios. At the rear we’ve changed everything, going one–two steps stiffer with harder compounds that better resist heat and wear. A harder compound for both the soft and the medium, then the third rear spec has the reinforced carcass, the same as in Austria, which we use if temperatures shoot up. To compensate for this carcass, we paired it with the same compounds as the soft. Today and tomorrow we need to gather data—we started from zero with this new asphalt."

In the afternoon session, riders worked with the medium front tire, while at the rear they used both the medium and the soft. With the sprint race in mind, we need to see what the rear choice will be: if the soft drops off too soon, the medium could become a concrete option.

Top 5 Alex Marquez–Acosta–Marc Marquez–Bezzecchi–Bastianini, then towards the end of the session Fabio Di Giannantonio managed to slot into sixth and thus book a place in Q2. It wasn’t an easy day for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 team rider, grappling with some issues riding his Ducati Desmosedici GP26.

Fantastic Fabio Quartararo, seventh with the Yamaha M1. The top 10 was completed by the Aprilia of Jorge Martin and the LCR Hondas of Diogo Moreira and Johann Zarco. Fermin Aldeguer missed Q2 by a few thousandths with the other BK8 Gresini team Ducati. Very disappointing Pecco Bagnaia, who set the 16th time on a track where he had dominated in 2025.

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