Having whipped itself into 2027 silly season frenzy already, MotoGP finally kicked off official track action for 2026 with the opening day of testing at Sepang.
This can only offer the merest hints of this year's competitive picture - especially as some took part in the shakedown test days prior, but most did not - but there was plenty new to see on track, and plenty of information about the condition in which certain riders and teams are approaching the campaign.
Marquez's lead is deceptive
Away from a MotoGP bike ever since he was taken out of the Indonesian Grand Prix, Marc Marquez claimed a familiar position on the leaderboard on his return - but this wasn't a particularly meaningful first place.
Marquez's right shoulder still needs time and effort, and is being managed in this testing programme. His day was largely about getting himself back into shape - "there was a [testing] plan, but as I didn't feel so good in the morning, I asked Ducati to have the morning for me, just to play well with the body [position]".
"Super stiff in the morning, a little bit more free, more comfortable, in the afternoon," Marquez summed up.
"But it's true we did very short runs - two-three laps, two-three laps - to avoid extra fatigue tomorrow and day three."
The quarter-of-a-second buffer to Fabio Di Giannantonio (with Maverick Vinales close behind) was not representative at all, he indicated, with the likes of Alex Marquez and team-mate Pecco Bagnaia not showing their cards.
Shakedown times
1 Marc Marquez (Ducati) 1m57.018s
2 Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati) +0.256s
3 Maverick Vinales (KTM) +0.277s
4 Alex Marquez (Ducati) +0.469s
5 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +0.506s
6 Luca Marini (Honda) +0.551s
7 Joan Mir (Honda) +0.675s
8 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) +0.702s
9 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +0.851s
10 Franco Morbidelli (Ducati) +1.050s
11 Johann Zarco (Honda) +1.122s
12 Enea Bastianini (KTM) +1.143s
13 Brad Binder (KTM) +1.176s
14 Jack Miller (Yamaha) +1.234s
15 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +1.295s
16 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +1.302s
17 Ai Ogura (Aprilia) +1.595s
18 Raul Fernandez (Aprilia) +1.641s
19 Diogo Moreira (Honda) +1.664s
20 Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) +1.869s
21 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) +1.890s
22 Andrea Dovizioso (Yamaha) +3.663s
23 Augusto Fernandez (Yamaha) +4.036s
And Marquez is in any case, adamant that his target isn't necessarily to beat those two at Sepang, one of his worst tracks on the calendar - but just be close enough.
"[Laptime] was a surprise, but it's not the most important. I used the new tyre in the last part of the practice - me, Di Giannantonio and Vinales - but Alex did the fastest lap I think in the worst hour [for track condition], Pecco also with a lot of heat.
"For me Malaysia is like always - [the aim is] to try to be there in the group, in the front group, Last year I remember here that Pecco and Alex were much faster than me. But then I know what Malaysia is, and what I need to be competitive in all the calendar."
Bagnaia feels relieved
Ignore completely the difference in seven places between Marquez and Bagnaia - this was a very positive start for the #63, and this was evident too in him spending a big chunk of that afternoon session in first place before others improved.
More importantly, things just felt right.
"I feel good, honestly," Bagnaia beamed. "I thought a lot of this moment during the winter, praying that things would go well. And honestly... it went well. From the start of the day. I enjoyed a lot riding today."
Bagnaia had already expected a step forward based on what he'd tried in Valencia in post-season testing - and that feeling was reinforced. Though the engine is frozen from 2025 and the most visible change on the 2026 Ducati is substantially reprofiled front and side aero, whatever work has gone on beneath the surface has given Bagnaia confidence that his corner entry issues have been mitigated.
"For that, I have to say thanks a lot to Ducati - for helping me, here, to find it. Maybe it's the track, because also last year I was quite competitive here, but last year I was struggling in some areas that today weren't a problem.
"As soon as I started with the '26, I felt good. The braking-entry, I was feeling that the bike was stopping and not pushing. And this is something I was asking a lot last year."
Quartararo's expectations aren't high
Fabio Quartararo denied in the lead-up to the test that he'd already signed with Honda for 2027-28 - but coming out of Tuesday's running, he certainly didn't sound like someone who Yamaha should be optimistic of retaining.
A finger injury after a nasty high-speed crash has ruled him out of the rest of the test, and this will probably have soured the mood - though ultimately it may be a red herring for the season ahead given Quartararo had run in the shakedown beforehand, and felt that even despite the lost mileage he and the team had "already tested everything we had to test" and "did more than enough".
But he is just very obviously not all that thrilled about the new bike and the upcoming days and weeks of grinding to get the V4-engined Yamaha to a competitive level.
"Of course, I cannot say I'm confident," he said. "We see how much we suffer, we see that our laptimes are not very good. But the only thing I can do is do my best, try to be riding at my maximum - and whatever the position is, try to do the best I can."
"There is still work to do - especially on the turning, on the traction, on electronics, on the grip, on the power... There are many things to adjust.
"I didn't do enough laps, but we see also how fast [rivals] are doing just in the first day. In just one day, we saw the laptimes, and it's unbelievably fast. We know where we are. We know that we're super far."
Yamaha will have to wait for top speed
The other Yamaha riders were considerably perkier, clearly more at ease with the idea of building up the project in the coming rounds.
Both Alex Rins and Jack Miller painted a picture of contentment, despite Miller going down at Turn 9 when the engine brake "twitched when it shouldn't have".
"For the kilometres that the bike has done on track, it was great," Rins insisted. "Today Fabio did a 57.8 - he did 57.6, I think, in the shakedown.
"I mean, still it's missing power, everybody saw on the TV. They explained to us that another engine is coming, but more like in a month or in two months. So we need to wait."
A month would be for the Thailand opener, but that's not the suggestion being made - so chances are Yamaha's V4s will still be compromised in their ability to battle at least in the initial races of the campaign.
No nasty surprises (almost)
While Yamaha takes its first steps with the V4, the main pretenders to Ducati's throne in 2026 - Aprilia, KTM and Honda - all projected some degree of optimism.
The message from Aprilia, courtesy of test rider Lorenzo Savadori (riding in relief of the recovering Jorge Martin), is that the 2026 bike is a bit better everywhere.
On KTM's end, Pedro Acosta indicated a satisfactory resolution to some chassis testing (with aero the next focus), and Acosta's rumoured factory team replacement Vinales was back in the groove, clearly feeling a lot closer to his pre-injury self after the shoulder problems robbed him of much of last year's campaign.
And Honda factory pair Luca Marini and Joan Mir both indicated the manufacturer's positive trend from last year was being continued, though both emphasised that a grip deficit was still felt.
It was the kind of day where most riders seemed happy enough to be here after a winter off, as long as they were healthy and their bikes were intact.
But for LCR Honda rookie Diogo Moreira, even a considerable spill - "I think the fastest of my life", at the same corner that injured Quartararo - didn't particularly dampen his spirits, even though freight complications meant both he and team-mate Johann Zarco were limited to a single bike on the day, making any crash doubly sub-optimal.
The other rookie, Toprak Razgatlioglu, narrowly avoided one at that very same corner, admitting that had his reflexes been a little worse, he probably would've written off his V4-engined Yamaha M1.
Contractual steps
Even with track action back underway the 2027 contract scenarios no doubt continue to play out in the background - with one question being whether Ducati will hit its stated target of committing Marquez to a new deal before round one.
There was presumably hope to get something signed already, but the process is still ongoing.
"In this moment we are trying to finalise the contract with Marc. We are close, it seems that we can finalise it soon," Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi told MotoGP.com.
On whether Marquez wanted a one-year deal rather than the conventional two years, Tardozzi said: "That's not the matter of the discussion. I think that there are small details that with such a champion you have to discuss deeply - but Marc would like to stay with Ducati, Ducati would like to have Marc. I am confident we will find an agreement."
"We are step by step more close," Marquez himself acknowledged.
Ducati's claim is that until that side of the garage is sorted, no final decisions will be made on the other bike - for which Acosta, not Bagnaia, is being reported as a massive favourite.
