Guido Pini tops his debut with Leopard Honda; Moto3 hampered by bad weather at Portimao

Tests ended with times that were not very indicative for the Moto3 riders at Portimão due to bad weather. Here’s how it went.

Doing tests at Portimão is becoming a big problem. After Superbike, Moto3 also ran into bad weather on the Portuguese track, this time due to the passage of Storm Marta, which brought heavy rain and strong winds. The first two days of 2026 testing for the lightweight class of the World Championship wrapped up in these conditions: the outright lap record is a 1:46.379 set by José Antonio Rueda in 2024, and as you can see below, the riders on track were very, very far from that...

A 2:03 for rookie Adrian Cruces (CIP Green Power) on day one, with only 10 riders on track, while the 2:01 posted by Guido Pini, in his first outing with Honda and Leopard Racing (19 riders in action), on the second and final day is a bit better, but still clearly shows that the track conditions were far from ideal. These were certainly not particularly useful tests for the rookies, and David Muñoz’s return after his major injury wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but we all know you can’t control the weather... Moto2 is up next over the next two days; we’ll see if that class has a bit more luck.

1. Adrian Cruces - CIP Green Power - KTM - 2:03.320
2. David Almansa - Intact GP - KTM - 2:03.833
3. Jesus Rios - Snipers Team - Honda - 2:03.899
4. Marco Morelli - Aspar Team - KTM - 2:03.913
5. Eddie O'Shea - MLav Racing - Honda - 2:04.285
6. Veda Pratama - Honda Team Asia - Honda - 2:05.156
7. Zen Mitani - Honda Team Asia - Honda - 2:05.197
8. Casey O'Gorman - SIC58 Squadra Corse - Honda - 2:05.336
9. Nicola Carraro - Snipers Team - Honda - 2:06.513
10. David Munoz - Intact GP - KTM - 2:10.807