Five things we learned from the 2026 Sepang MotoGP test

The opening pre-season test of the 2026 season is officially in the books, with Alex Marquez leading the way for Ducati at Sepang.

The final year of the 1000cc regulations is hoped to bring about a much tighter competitive order, especially with engine development frozen for everyone but Yamaha, who is the only rank D concession brand in 2026.

After Aprilia seemingly made up ground on Ducati towards the end of 2025, the key question coming into the first test revolved around whether or not the latter would be able to make a significant step forward to re-establish its advantage.

After three days of running, it does appear that Ducati remains a step ahead of the rest, with good one lap pace being paired with some encouraging sprint simulations on Thursday at Sepang.

Aprilia, however, was largely low-key in its work, with its pace hard to read relative to its run plan. That said, the Noale brand departs the Sepang paddock with smiles all round its garage.

Elsewhere, KTM’s promises of a more aggressive development path for the 2026 bike proved to be true, while Honda continues to make steady progress with an RC213V continually being lavished with praise.

Yamaha’s new V4 era has been disastrous so far, with engine issues forcing it to abandon day two of the test and threatening to pull out altogether if a fix couldn’t be found. It did make it out for the last day, but it appears that Yamaha is much further away than anticipated.

Here are the five key talking points from the 2026 Sepang MotoGP test.

1 Gigi Dall’Igna’s toy box produces some worrying results for Ducati’s rivals

Ducati may have dominated the 2025 season, winning 17 of the 22 grands prix and easing to the world title with Marc Marquez. Even if the 32-year-old had been absent, Alex Marquez’s form on the 2024-spec bike would have guaranteed it the championship.

But there were tangible gains for its rivals, particularly Aprilia, with Ducati for the first time genuinely feeling the effects of MotoGP’s concession restrictions placed on it in 2024.

But forcing Gigi Dall’Igna into a corner has only seemed to have made him dig deeper for the GP26. While not radically different to last year’s bike, the GP26’s biggest gain seems to have come courtesy of a new ride height device. Ducati also seems to have made the bike more rider friendly.

“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,” Jorge Lorenzo said on Thursday at Sepang when asked for his thoughts from trackside. “But also when they pick up, they keep this smoothness for a very long time. The other bikes look very nervous.”

Alex Marquez led the way overall with a 1m56.402s, which is a shade slower than the all-time lap record, while Fabio Di Giannantonio was third and Marc Marquez fourth on the GP26.

Both Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio, who complained the most in 2025 about the Ducati’s inconsistent front-end feeling, were especially complimentary of the steps made with the GP26.

Sepang, especially after three days of running, always masks the true pecking order. And Bagnaia is wary of getting ahead of himself. But he never looked as happy or relaxed as he did this week at any point last year - even when he was on pole and winning the sprint at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Ducati’s long run pace was particularly impressive. Alex Marquez was fastest, with an average pace of 1m58.028s compared to a 1m58.166s for Bagnaia, who in turn was marginally faster than Marc Marquez.

Alex Marquez is always strong a Sepang, but Ducati will still be encouraged by this, especially with the gap it has pace-wise to the rest of the field.

Ducati does face something of a headache going into the next test. The bulk of its week at Sepang was centred on aero testing, with the 2024, 2025 and new-for-2026 front fairings being trialled, as well as a host of different side configurations.

As of the final day, two paths had been settled on. Alex Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia look to be favouring the 2024 aero fairing, while Marc Marquez appears to be more confident on the 2025 package.

2 Marc Marquez may be below full fitness, but key strengths remain

Tuesday at the Sepang test marked the first time in 121 days that Marc Marquez rode a MotoGP bike. Suffering a complicated shoulder injury in a collision with Marco Bezzecchi in last October’s Indonesian Grand Prix, Marquez has been sidelined since.

As such, he was not at 100% fitness when he hit the Sepang circuit on Tuesday. That didn’t stop him going fastest on the first day. As the test wore on, his physical condition dropped, which is to be expected.

That explains his step behind in pace compared to Alex Marquez and Bagnaia. However, he also felt that there did need to be a step from himself to get on terms. With much of the Ducati package finalised at this stage, the Thailand test should allow him to get deeper into set-up work.

Though a shade slower than his Ducati team-mates during Thursday’s sprint simulation, he felt that his end-of-race pace remained strong.

“Today we did the sprint simulation. I put a good rhythm there, just to check everything, the way that I finished I liked. I felt comfortable on those last laps and that was the most important thing.”

Indeed, if you look at the sprint sim laps from Thursday, Pecco Bagnaia’s last two tours were a 1m58.769s and 1m58.929s, while Alex Marquez’s were 1m58.530s and 1m58.859s. Marc Marquez managed a 1m58.630s and 1m58.824s. His ability to manage races won him so many races last year.

3 Aprilia hasn’t overhauled Ducati yet, but it’s still close

Aprilia’s mantra for bike development this winter has seemingly been evolution, not revolution. There was some new aero, most notably on the rear of the RS-GP, but the package overall looked like it was picking up from where it left off in 2025.

Marco Bezzecchi, once again spearheading testing work with Jorge Martin out while recovering from recent surgeries, waited until the last day to put in a standout lap time. A 1m56.526s in the closing stages of Thursday’s running split the Ducatis at the top of the standings.

That is encouraging, considering how badly Aprilia struggled at the Malaysian Grand Prix. This is something Bezzecchi acknowledged earlier in the test, though cautioned Aprilia not to be led astray by this form given the amount of rubber that was on track.

His sprint simulation was necessarily eye-catching. He was fifth in terms of average pace at 1m58.937s relative to 1m58.028s for Alex Marquez. However, it appears that Bezzecchi used a well-worn rear tyre for that run. Ducati, by contrast, used fresh rubber.

It’s thought that Bezzecchi gave away around half a second to this tyre choice. Assuming that is true, he would be ahead of KTM’s Pedro Acosta, whose pace was 1m58.676s, thus re-establishing the pecking order from the end of last season.

However, that still has Aprilia a few tenths shy of where it needs to be to legitimately challenge Ducati for race wins. Still, there is much for Aprilia to be pleased about.

4 Yamaha’s V4 era gets off to a nightmare start

Every pre-season, there is always one major story that overshadows the opening test. Last year it was Jorge Martin’s injury. This year, it was Yamaha’s technical dramas.

Committing to its V4 project, Yamaha was very much aware that it would not be factoring much at the front of the field in the first half of 2026. However, it hasn’t exactly shown that it has taken much of a step forward at all with the bike since it last hit the track in November.

The Yamaha was still bottom of the speed traps at the end of day one, while Fabio Quartararo (who crashed and broke his finger, which forced him to sit out the final days) and Toprak Razgatlioglu suffered mysterious technical issues.

Those problems proved more serious than first thought, with Yamaha sidelining its riders on day two on safety grounds. What the actual problem was, Yamaha hasn’t said. It was an issue with the engine, but did not contribute to Quartararo’s crash.

Yamaha team boss Massimo Meregalli noted on Thursday that it was an “unexpected” issue it had never encountered before with the V4 engine.

During its wildcard outings and testing last year, Yamaha never turned the V4 up to full power. It’s unclear if this is what it was trying at Sepang, which led to these issues. For the final day, Yamaha reduced revs in the engine and told its riders to be more gentle.

Alex Rins was the brand’s leading rider at the end of testing in 14th. He managed a sprint sim at the end of Thursday’s running. Yamaha management, meanwhile, were calm about the lost day.

But it has raised concerns about what is in store for the marque over the next few weeks into the start of the season, while it’s hardly done anything to convince Quartararo to commit to Yamaha beyond this year.

5 Toprak Razgatlioglu facing up to the enormity of adapting to MotoGP

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s MotoGP debut is hotly anticipate, with many predicting him to be competitive by the end of the year. The three-time World Superbike champion has always downplayed this. Ultimately, this is a learning year, as he adapts from Superbike to MotoGP machinery, while developing the 2027 bike on more familiar Pirelli tyres.

As far as Yamaha is concerned, there are no expectations on Razgatlioglu’s shoulders.

However, the Turkish megastar appears to have given a first bitter dose of the reality of the challenge ahead of him. At this stage, adapting his riding style is proving difficult. He has been able to see how others ride more smoothly on MotoGP bikes, which is something he can’t do yet.

Braking performance is coming along, but he has had to wrestle with switching between seat units, because the lower version he is more used to means he can’t legally run rear wings.

He was 19th at the end of the test with a 1m58.326s and was the leading rookie, with Diogo Moreira just over a tenth adrift in 20th on the Honda. But he cut a dejected figure after the final day of running.

“It’s not easy for me to see myself so low in the standings, especially after my time in Superbikes. “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.”