MotoGP’s 2026 pre-season is over, so with the shakedown and two main tests complete and the season-opening Thai Grand Prix looming next weekend, who’s got most (and least) to smile about?
Winner: Aprilia
The Aprilia RS-GP already looked quite good at Buriram last year, but less consistently good than this and with fewer riders capable of threatening at the front than now.
Jorge Martin had a promising test - he's still "two-three tenths off on pace" but more comfortable on the bike and finding it a "very natural" fit to his riding style.
But the big name is Marco Bezzecchi, fastest over a single lap and fastest over a race run, with a bike repeatedly described as a small uptick in every area.
Bezzecchi - not his future team-mate Pecco Bagnaia or 2025 runner-up Alex Marquez - is the biggest threat to Marc Marquez's title defence.
Losers: KTM riders who aren't Pedro Acosta
Was it a great test for Pedro Acosta? Not necessarily, with a pronounced pace deficit to the front. But, while under no illusions he'll be fighting for victory, he is at least clearly convinced the KTM RC16 has made a step.
None of the other KTM riders have done much at all to feel that conviction.
Acosta is a good chunk ahead of them over a single lap, and in terms of race pace only Maverick Vinales' sprint simulation is somewhere in the vicinity of what Acosta has been doing.
And Vinales feels underprepared for the Thai GP. His post-test assessment was that he'd spent too long "re-testing" things and confirming his preferred package, and that he "needs at least one more day" of running.
"I expected to be much more on top," he acknowledged. "Obviously I'm not where I want to be."
Yet he still looks in better shape than Brad Binder or Enea Bastianini.
After a "very positive" Malaysia test, Bastianini suddenly struggled with a "very physical" bike, lacking stability over the kerbs, and looks destined for a difficult race weekend.
His race sim was bad, and so was Binder's - though the latter has pinned his hopes on a "complete new set-up" that seemed to speed him up at the very end of the test.
Winner: Pecco Bagnaia
Pecco Bagnaia acknowledged this test was "much more important" than the previous one at Sepang - and so the relief that it went well was much more palpable.
It's too early to celebrate. He was in the ballpark with his qualifying sim and sprint sim - but is still missing some corner entry "repeatability", and in my view should aim to be further clear of specifically Alex Marquez, and more effective on used tyres.
If you remember, though, some of his late-season form from last year, this is a clear upgrade. For now.
Loser: Honda
It's nothing catastrophic, but the vibe from the Honda camp is that it's not closed the gap like it will have wanted to, at least at Buriram specifically.
The reinforced rear tyre carcass in use at the track for the purpose of heat resistance appears a culprit. "Probably this different carcass is not our big friend at the moment," Joan Mir said.
But both Mir and team-mate Luca Marini have keenly felt a lingering rear grip deficit on corner exit, and the implication is that the bike is still not quite the finished project.
The season is long but Honda doesn't have that much time to make its recent upward trajectory really count before all focus shifts to 2027.
Winner: Ai Ogura
Ai Ogura's looked fairly unremarkable through four of the five days of testing, but picked the best day to break out.
He played down his impressive Sunday showing (which included the second-fastest time and a really good sprint simulation), convinced that three or four riders have more pace than him and that his likely target for the weekend is a top-seven.
But it really should not take too much to thrust him into the podium battle.
The problem is that Buriram was already fantastic for Ogura last year, and also an outlier, but that's something he should only worry about come round two.
Loser: Yamaha
The new V4-powered M1 is not competitive right now.
This isn't a crisis or even necessarily a problem or something to blame Yamaha for. It would have taken a miracle for this new bike to be immediately fighting for good results, and there has been no miracle.
Some of the headline times are honestly not horrible. Jack Miller finished the test a second off the pace as the fastest Yamaha rider, and sprint simulations by Alex Rins and Fabio Quartararo suggested the bike is more or less able to sustain that kind of deficit over a sprint distance.
It looks shakier over a grand prix distance, like the prototype already did at the end of 2025. A 20-something second gap to the winner next Sunday appears the absolute best-case scenario.
It's a work in progress, and there's a baked-in power deficit as it stands. The next engine, team principal Massimo Meregalli told The Race, won't arrive "before the European races. So now it's try to manage as much as we can what we have".
Winner: Marc Marquez, despite everything
Yes, Marc Marquez looks a lot more vulnerable than he did last year, and nobody can be certain how much of that is just his still-recovering shoulder and the stomach bug that affected him during this two-day test.
He also crashed during his race simulation while already off Bezzecchi's pace. He'd crashed twice the day prior.
So why is he a winner? Because nobody else has made enough of a step to truly put him on the back foot.
Marquez was still fastest in the early-Sunday qualifying sims, and as good as Bezzecchi's race run was, it was still slower than Marquez's race sim from the same test a year ago.
He's ready to fight. He's still the marginal favourite for the Thai Grand Prix - and still a strong favourite for the 2026 crown.
Loser: Fabio Quartararo
Like in last year's Buriram test, Quartararo hasn't looked particularly potent here relative to the other Yamaha riders, perhaps hamstrung again by the rear tyre construction.
But, after causing an inadvertent stir by being overly agitated on the bike on the first day of the test (he gave it the bird), Quartararo has sounded like he's trying to accept the trophy-less season that he expects.
There is no expectation from Quartararo that the bike will be ready to fight for anything big this year. And whatever foundations will be laid he anyway won't stick around to benefit from, with a move to Honda on the horizon.
