The three-day MotoGP test at Sepang that kicked off the 2026 season in earnest marked the long-awaited return of Marc Marquez - but it was brother Alex who topped the timesheets.

And while all manufacturers - save for Yamaha and its still-raw project - spoke of considerable gains in the off-season, in the end there was little evidence of the status quo being disturbed, with all five Ducati riders in attendance slotting into the top seven on combined times.

But what went on beneath the surface of the headline laptimes? Here are the major takeaways.

Ducati's sprints strike fear

The single-lap picture at the end of a test like this is, of course, to be taken with a grain of salt - but even despite all the Desmosedicis featuring at the sharp end Ducati's advantage here didn't look as commanding as last year.

Over one lap, that is.

Thursday race simulations from Marc Marquez, more so Pecco Bagnaia and even more so Alex Marquez clearly struck a bit of fear into some rivals who may have hoped coming into Sepang that Ducati is in striking range now.

Sprint race simulations by average time (and lap count)

1 Alex Marquez, 1m58.028s (10)
2 Pecco Bagnaia, +0.139s (10)
3 Marc Marquez, +0.261s (10)
4 Pedro Acosta, +0.648s (10)
5 Marco Bezzecchi, +0.909s (10)
6 Joan Mir, +0.965s (11)
7 Johann Zarco, +1.307s (11)
8 Jack Miller, +1.396s (10)
9 Enea Bastianini, +1.404s (9)
10 Luca Marini, +1.567s (11)
11 Ai Ogura, +1.638s (7)

Some caveats are important here. While the Ducatis clearly went full-tilt on fresh rubber, it is known for instance that Marco Bezzecchi ran on very used rubber, so there's no concern from Aprilia.

And there were some other oddities - Ai Ogura was unwell, Enea Bastianini had bad vibration front and rear, the Hondas all did 11 laps for some reason when the Malaysia sprint is 10. 

Plus, the Ducatis were already this quick in the sprint simulations in the same test last year.

But there was still clearly a bit of a tone shift to one of more cold realism from some of its rivals.

Pedro Acosta acknowledged the sprint pace wasn't optimal - but also that Ducati was clearly a step ahead. And Joan Mir said: "It was good but if you check the pace of the Ducati guys, especially Alex - we are far [away], eh? We are far. We made an improvement compared to last year, it's not a bad pace, but I think Ducati made a step this pre-season."

Honda still faces a significant grip deficit, Mir said. "If tomorrow is a race, I think we can fight for top five, top four but not a lot more," he added - and he joked that if he tried to match the quickest lap of Alex Marquez's sprint simulation, a 1m57.295s, "the next lap is a 2m01s because I cook the tyre completely".

Marquez is Malaysian GP favourite

...if it happened tomorrow.

And yes, that's Alex Marquez, not Marc.

The test marked more or less the first official incorporation of the younger Marquez into Ducati's works fleet - he is not contracted to Ducati but has been upgraded to the latest-spec bike, so is participating in development.

Ducati's big development question during the test was aero, with riders juggling various specs on front and side - with 2024 stuff, 2025 stuff and the newest 2026 stuff in use.

A homologation decision will be required before the start of the season, and should come early in the next test in Thailand, though some directions are already becoming clear (and it doesn't sound like the '26 'droopier' front aero, for example, is being particularly favoured). 

Alex is an involved part of this process now, instead of a satellite rider allowed to pound laps and hone set-up on a hand-me-down bike that needs no spec decisions.

But that extra responsibility has certainly not made him slow. The younger Marquez is a well-known Sepang maestro, and he laid down the marker here over both one lap and the sprint distance.

More remarkably, he wasn't even particularly happy with his sprint simulation.

"I think I pushed a little bit too much [early on]," he said.  "Later on, I did mistakes, it's the first simulation that we made this year, so- I did too many mistakes, small ones, but too many mistakes, and one big one. So I lost there like one second or more. 

I felt like I think we are a little bit better than last year, a little bit more competitive, not a big step."

The champion is easing himself in

Back on a MotoGP bike for the first time since Mandalika last October, Marc Marquez was immediately competitive but overall unremarkable - if only by his own stratospheric standards.

"We need to improve. Because there are two-three riders that are faster than us," he admitted to MotoGP.com after the test. 

Rider one is clearly Alex Marquez. Rider two is almost-as-clearly Bagnaia, who would also be a prime contender for grand prix honours if they all went racing at Sepang this weekend.

Bagnaia felt he may have erred with the timing of his qualifying sim relative to track condition, and was running low on front grip at the end of sprint simulation, but he has been consistent in saying that he feels more confidence in the front of this bike than the '25 he'd suffered with through his awful last season.

Rider three is almost certainly Bezzecchi - the Aprilia isn't supposed to be amazing here, but he's been sneaky fast throughout before delivering a very convincing laptime late on.

Ultimately, though, Marc can live with losing to his brother and his team-mate here. He has made that very clear - Sepang doesn't favour him, so no alarm bells will be ringing.

And he's just not quite fit yet, especially under the physical pressure of extensive test mileage, with Marquez admitting his body position wasn't right by the end of the test.

Alarm bells ringing

Most riders steadfastly describe themselves as "happy" at the end of every test. Not to cast aspersions, but a fair few of them have almost certainly been lying over the years - and maybe today, too.

One rider who wasn't lying was Trackhouse sophomore Ogura - who admitted he was "not so happy" and not as fast as he expected.

His sprint simulation was clearly a bit of a mess, his single-lap effort more in the mix but not great, and corner speed just wasn't where he wanted it at. He also was, however, noticeably unwell with a cold, though "on the bike I was fine, not 100% fine but enough to ride".

Team-mate Raul Fernandez was perkier - and healthier - but admitted the single-lap pace isn't quite coming together.

Equally, going for a fast time seemed to be problematic for KTM’s Brad Binder, which is a distinctly worrying sign given he had gone 0-22 against team-mate Acosta in qualifying last year, and that this was by far the biggest contributor to a disappointing season.

"For sure I'd like to have been a lot faster" was his admission. He was more comfortable on the bike but hasn't yet been able to get that comfort to translate on the stopwatch.

One rider who did sound a bit out of the woods on Thursday was LCR Honda's Johann Zarco, but question marks still remain.

Zarco contrasted the positivity of factory riders Mir and Luca Marini through the first two days with his own compromised feeling on the bike, which continued a worrying trend from the second half of 2025 - when he just didn't gel with the upgraded Honda.

He felt some progress was made on his final day here, while also emphasising that he "cannot copy" the bikes Mir and Marini are riding even if their feedback is very positive.

Razgatlioglu is facing his first setbacks

Pramac Yamaha rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu had an almost suspiciously rosy start to MotoGP life in the year-closing tests of last year - but five days at Sepang (three in the shakedown, two in the test) clearly drove home some harsh truths about the size of the task in adapting from World Superbikes.

Razgatlioglu admitted he was "angry" looking at the timesheets, staring at what in the end was a 3s deficit to the front. This did improve considerably in the afternoon, though he was still short of his laptime target.

"I expected a [1m]57[s]. But I didn't do a 57. I said maybe I do a 57.7-57.6, but today when I started it was so difficult, also my motivation was going down. Because I'm riding the same as before and the laptime wasn't coming," he said.

The Pirelli-to-Michelin rewiring of his style is still ongoing, and while the front and corner entry on brakes were the two biggest problem areas anticipated last year, here it was actually managing rear wheelspin that confounded Razgatlioglu.

He is aware getting to a truly competitive level may well take until the start of the European season at the end of April.

First glimpses of where Yamaha stands

Fabio Quartararo's injury withdrawal and the bikes being parked on Wednesday as a technical issue was being investigated were the two headlines for Yamaha from this test, and neither headline is good.

But what is a good headline for Yamaha right now - and how far is too far, and how close is close enough?

Performance-wise, the headline figures we have are a best lap of 1m57.580s across the shakedown and test (set by Alex Rins) and a sprint simulation logged by Jack Miller.

The single-lap isn't phenomenal. In this test, the other four manufacturers were either marginally faster than they had been in the same test last year (Ducati, KTM) or considerably faster (Honda, Aprilia) - while Yamaha came up well short of Quartararo's 1m56.724s from 2025.

But this bike is very new, and it was missing its fastest rider. And Miller's sprint simulation was satisfactory enough, the Pramac rider complimenting bike behaviour towards the end of the stint in particular.

The question right now has to be - can this all-new bike fight anyone, especially before the anticipated early-season V4 upgrade that should bring some much-needed top speed?

On the evidence of Sepang, the answer is a maybe - and that's maybe good enough for now.

Sepang test full times

1 Alex Marquez (Ducati) 1m56.402s, 154 laps
2 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +0.124s, 153 laps
3 Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati) +0.383s, 139 laps
4 Marc Marquez (Ducati) +0.387s, 117 laps
5 Joan Mir (Honda) +0.472s, 128 laps
6 Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) +0.527s, 139 laps
7 Franco Morbidelli (Ducati) +0.581s, 137 laps
8 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +0.714s, 144 laps
9 Maverick Vinales (KTM) +0.724s, 153 laps
10 Raul Fernandez (Aprilia) +0.843s, 134 laps
11 Enea Bastianini (KTM) +0.888s, 127 laps
12 Ai Ogura (Aprilia) +0.924s, 168 laps
13 Luca Marini (Honda) +1.163s, 137 laps
14 Alex Rins (Yamaha) +1.178s, 77 laps
15 Brad Binder (KTM) +1.188s, 141 laps
16 Johann Zarco (Honda) +1.199s, 139 laps
17 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) +1.467s, 24 laps
18 Jack Miller (Yamaha) +1.754s, 92 laps
19 Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) +1.924s, 84 laps
20 Diogo Moreira (Honda) +2.074s, 107 laps
21 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) +2.164s, 120 laps
22 Augusto Fernandez (Yamaha) +2.876s, 36 laps
23 Andrea Dovizioso (Yamaha) +4.279s, 38 laps