A monstrous lap from Marco Bezzecchi on the Aprilia topped the first Friday of the 2026 MotoGP season, as future team-mate Pecco Bagnaia found himself in Q1 for the Thailand Grand Prix for the second year running.

Bezzecchi trailed surprise pacesetter Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) going into the final minutes of the session, but uncorked a ludicrous 1m58.526s - the new best MotoGP lap of the Buriram circuit - to complete a Friday clean sweep.

In a rain-affected session in which the track was never truly wet but grip was being varied up from sector to sector by rain drops, reigning champion Marc Marquez looked ill at ease in stringing laps together and at one point appeared at risk of missing the all-important top 10 - which guarantees a Q2 slot in Saturday morning's qualifying.

He ultimately made it with some room to spare though, placing second - though he was still 0.421s back from Bezzecchi's incredible effort.

Di Giannantonio settled for third, ahead of KTM's benchmark Pedro Acosta and Bezzecchi's factory Aprilia team-mate Jorge Martin.

Alex Marquez was baulked by stand-in team-mate Michele Pirro - replacing the injured Fermin Aldeguer at Gresini, and facing a post-session investigation as a result of that baulk - but still made the top 10 comfortably in sixth.

Honda riders Joan Mir and Johann Zarco also booked top-10 spots, as did Brad Binder (KTM) and Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) - despite Ogura crashing on his final outlap.

Advancing to Q2: Bezzecchi, M Marquez, Di Giannantonio, Acosta, Martin, A Marquez, Mir, Binder, Ogura, Zarco

Will contest Q1: Marini, Vinales, Morbidelli, Fernandez, Bagnaia, Quartararo, Bastianini, Moreira, Miller, Rins, Razgatlioglu, Pirro

The other factory Ducati rider, Bagnaia, had looked in better shape throughout the pre-season but appeared off his game all day, barely ever threatening for the top 10 in this hour-long session.

He was ultimately well outside the Q2 spots in 15th, just six hundredths up on former title rival Fabio Quartararo - the fastest of the Yamahas.

Of the series two debutants, Diogo Moreira in 18th, was a reasonable six tenths off the fastest Honda rider, while Toprak Razgatlioglu trailed Quartararo by just half a second.