Marco Bezzecchi set a brand new monitor report. Photograph: AFP
BANGKOK:
Marco Bezzecchi set a brand new monitor report to complete quickest forward of defending world champion Marc Marquez in observe for the season-opening Thailand MotoGP on Friday.
Aprilia’s Bezzecchi roared around the Buriram course in 1 min 28.526 sec to high the timesheets, 0.421 sec in entrance of Ducati’s second-placed Marquez.
Marquez is launching his bid for a record-equalling eighth world title this weekend after dominating the competitors final season.
However Bezzecchi proved he will probably be a drive to be reckoned with in a observe session that someway stayed principally dry regardless of ominous darkish clouds and rumbles of thunder.
The Italian got here by means of on the finish of the session to replace his personal monitor report, which he set in pre-season testing final week.
He was additionally quickest within the morning’s free observe.
VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio was third-fastest within the afternoon session, adopted by KTM’s Pedro Acosta, Aprilia’s Jorge Martin and Gresini’s Alex Marquez.
Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia, the 2022 and 2023 world champion, completed fifteenth, forcing him into Saturday’s first qualifying session.
His teammate Marc Marquez was additionally struggling till he surged up the timesheets with round 20 minutes of the session to go.
The Spaniard begins the season nonetheless struggling the impact of a shoulder damage that pressured him to overlook the ultimate 4 races of final season.
He mentioned on Thursday that the damage had pressured him to alter his using type till he returns to full health.
Turkey’s Toprak Razgatlioglu, a three-time Superbike world champion making his MotoGP debut, completed the observe session twenty first out of twenty-two.
Martin, whose defence of his title final season was wrecked by accidents, crashed 10 minutes into the morning free observe session.
Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura additionally got here off within the afternoon session.
The highest 10 quickest riders in observe ebook their tickets for Saturday’s second qualifying session, which shapes the primary 4 rows of the grid.
This group are then joined by the 2 quickest riders from the primary qualifying session.
Qualifying determines the grid for each the dash race on Saturday and the principle occasion GP on Sunday afternoon.
