Luca Marini topped the timesheets on the final day of the opening MotoGP pre-season test of the year at the Sepang International Circuit ahead of reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Sunday’s action was slow to get off the mark after the Malaysian circuit once again fell victim to rain showers overnight, though as the track dried activity began in earnest as the teams looked to finalise their 2023 packages ahead of the final test at Portimao next month.
Saturday pacesetter Jorge Martin quickly got down to business as he posted the fastest lap of the test to that point – a 1:58.204s – with Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and day one leader Marco Bezzecchi breathing down his neck.
With track time running out the pace really began to hot up in the afternoon segment of the outing, with times dropping into the 1:57’s and edging close to Martin’s outright circuit lap record of 1:57.790s that he used to secure pole position for last year’s Malaysian Grand Prix.
This benchmark ultimately remained unbeaten though as VR46’s Marini banged in a 1:57.889s effort to secure a clean sweep for Ducati across all three days at Sepang, with Bagnaia snapping at his heels in second.
The Italian manufacturer ended up securing seven of the spots within the top ten with only the factory Aprilia pairing of Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales, as well as Honda’s Marc Marquez, getting a look in with Vinales going third fastest.
Enea Bastianini and Martin completed the top five on their respective Desmosedici’s ahead of Espargaro’s Aprilia, while Fabio Di Gianantonio shaded Bezzecchi for seventh on his Gresini-run Ducati, though Bezzecchi at least managed to win the prize for the day’s highest lap count on 61.
Alex Marquez ended the test ninth on the sister Gresini machine with brother Marc completing the top ten having elected to focus on only two bikes having tested a total of four RC213-V specifications across the opening two days, the original 2023 development prototypes the ones he elected to use.
Pol Espargaro ended up as the highest placed KTM RC16 rider in 13th overall just under a second from the ultimate pace in what turned out to be a quiet three days for the Austrian manufacturer in general, factory men Brad Binder and Jack Miller ending Sunday 14th and 18th overall respectively.
Yamaha’s factory rider’s also decided to not chase outright laptime, with Fabio Quartararo 17th quickest ahead of Franco Morbidelli in 20th, though the duo head to Portimao happy with the top speed improvement seen from the M1 across the test – the bike looking to be losing only around one kilometre per hour to the pace setting Ducati’s.
Keyword: Marini leads in Sepang as Ducati completes opening test domination