Marc Marquez finished the final day of the Buriram MotoGP pre-season test fastest for Ducati, 0.179s ahead of his brother Alex Marquez.
The headline of the day came from action off-track, as Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi announced the manufacturer’s intention to run its 2024 engine across all six of its bikes.
Rookie Fermin Aldeguer and Franco Morbidelli had been testing the 2025 engine for the Italian marque, but it was ultimately decided that the 2024 engine has a higher level of performance.
The focus of the riders was on race trim, with Marquez putting in a full race simulation that was seven tenths quicker than Alex Marquez’s on the full GP24.
The eight-time world champion also led the timesheets with a time attack of 1m28.855s in the second hour of running, which was unchallenged for the rest of the day.
Alex Marquez concluded a successful pre-season in second as he once again trailed his brother by 0.179s on his Gresini-run GP24.
Marco Bezzecchi took third with Aprilia’s best ever lap time around the Buriram circuit, with the Italian’s average lap times recorded as the fastest of any factory rider.
Pedro Acosta led in the opening hour on the factory KTM and ended the day fourth overall, while Francesco Bagnaia was 0.523s off the best time in fifth.
Joan Mir finished a strong test for the factory Honda team in sixth, with VR46’s Morbidelli seventh.
Fabio Quartararo put the factory Yamaha into eighth on the combined timesheets, ahead of Maverick Vinales who made a late improvement to ninth on the Tech3 KTM.
Jack Miller rounded out the top 10 on the Pramac Yamaha, 0.762s off the pace.
Ai Ogura was the top rookie in the final day of testing in 11th for the Trackhouse Aprilia squad, while Brad Binder was 12th on the second factory KTM bike.
Raul Fernandez was 13th after his return from injury at the Sepang test with Luca Marini 14th for the factory Honda team.
Enea Bastianini’s struggles on the Tech3 KTM looked to continue on the last day of testing as the Italian ended the session 15th.
Johann Zarco finished the test in 16th for LCR Honda with Yamaha’s Alex Rins trailing behind in 17th.
Aldeguer was 18th after testing Ducati’s 2025 specifications ahead of Miguel Oliveira on the Pramac Yamaha, while fellow rookie Somkiat Chantra was 20th on the LCR Honda.
Test rider Lorenzo Savadori has worked on setup ahead of world champion Jorge Martin’s return to Aprilia and finished the test in 21st.
MotoGP will return to Thailand for the first race of the season on 28 February – 2 March.
READ MORE – Alex Marquez suggests GP24 Ducati is like ‘GP22’s sister’ MotoGP bike
