VR46 Ducati’s Marco Bezzecchi edged out Pramac’s Jorge Martin to lead Thailand’s opening MotoGP practice session.
The Italian posted the fastest lap time of 1.30.492s in the earlier phases of the practice session, with Martin only 0.038s adrift aboard his superior GP24 machine.
The factory Ducati rider of Francesco Bagnaia closed out the top three, a surprise result given the Italian’s usual nature of growing into the weekend rather than being competitive from the offset.
MotoGP arrived in Thailand for its 18th round of the 2024 season, with two race weekends in Asia remaining before the annual season finale in Valencia.
Thailand’s weather conditions changed significantly compared to previous weeks’ Friday outings. Bright blue skies led every rider to opt for the hard tyre in some capacity in preparation for the long race on Sunday.
Due to its heavy braking zones and long straights, the Chang International Circuit is notoriously demanding on the tyres. All riders opted for the hard rear, but the front tyres left riders choosing something different.
Ducati finished the opening session in the top six positions, and the Gresini Ducati duo of Marc and Alex Marquez finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Enea Bastianini formulated a late lap time to snatch second ahead of the returning rookie Pedro Acosta and factory KTM rider Jack Miller.
Takaaki Nakagami delivered a strong finish result of ninth place for LCR Honda with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo closing out the top ten.
Brad Binder finished a distant 11th despite being only a couple of tenths off from his stablemates, as Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio followed in the final classification.
Luca Maini finished in a competitive 14th spot for Repsol Honda with Maverick Vinales behind as the lead Aprilia rider for the session.
Honda’s incumbent championship leader, Johann Zarco, occupied 16th, ahead of Trackhouse Racing’s Raul Fernandez.
Joan Mir’s torrid form continued as the Spaniard secured 18th, ahead of old team-mate Alex Rins and GasGas rider Augusto Fernandez.
The Italian marque Aprilia occupied the final two positions in the classification as Aleix Espargaro and Lorenzo Savadori were no match to the rest of the field.
