After a frenzied off-season of future contract moves and intriguing test results, MotoGP's 2026 season kicked off in earnest on Friday with effectively the first 'qualifying' of the campaign.

Forty-four races and 21 other Fridays still await, but first contact with a true competitive picture this year proved a very intriguing one - and promised a fascinating season opener.

Bagnaia in familiar place but calm

Factory Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia insisted his day wasn't all that bad despite failing to qualify directly for Q2.

Bagnaia - whose rather similar Friday last year ended up foreshadowing a very poor season - put his lack of one-lap speed down to a combination of strategy and weather conditions rather than a continuation of the struggles he had endured in 2025.

Making a significant set-up change - in the wrong direction - and then being hurried by the threat of rain, it meant that Bagnaia was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It was more my bad," he explained, "and it didn't work well. I had too much rush, because before the session we tried to change the set-up and it was too much in the wrong direction.

"As soon as I started to see the sky was turning grey, I put in new tyres to get a better lap, but with that set-up I was struggling. And then it was too late, so my mistake. I should have been a little bit more calm, and the first day of the season could have been better."

However, Bagnaia hardly looked spectacular beyond the headline times, and a look at his best sectors suggests getting through Q1 tomorrow against the likes of fellow Friday underperformers Franco Morbidelli, Raul Fernandez and Luca Marini will be far from straightforward.

Marquez still limited - and running '24 aero

After a pre-season of trying out specs, the Ducati camp has largely settled on the 2024 aero package. For Marc Marquez, who favoured a different version last year, the choice is based largely on his injuries from the end of 2025 rather than on absolute performance - especially in time attack mode.

Still not fully recovered after yet another winter of prolonged rehab from the shoulder injury sustained when Marco Bezzecchi crashed into him at the Indonesian Grand Prix in October, Marquez claimed that, while he might move to a newer package when he's feeling fitter, that time isn't right now.

"I feel well," he explained, "but still I'm not riding the bike like I want. I need to keep improving my physical condition along with my riding style.

"For my condition now and the way that I am riding, we believe that it [the 2024 aero] is the best one.

"I feel much better with used tyres than with new tyres. It's something already last year happened, but now even more - because with the used tyres it looks like the bike is less physical and I like it, I prefer it.

"It's true that in time attack we need to be precise and aggressive, because qualifying practice is important."

Bezzecchi has scared everyone

Depending on Marquez's condition, Bezzecchi was the shadow favourite for the opener coming out of the Buriram test. He is now the Thai GP favourite full stop.

The other projected frontrunners all agreed Bezzecchi had something extra, as evidenced also by his ludicrous record-breaking lap. 

For Marquez, part of the formula was the harder, heat-resistant rear tyre casing used in Buriram (with Bezzecchi's stellar speed at Mandalika last year cited as evidence). His brother Alex said it was "no panic" if Bezzecchi proved out of reach here. And Bagnaia suggested his good friend and future team-mate at Aprilia had "three or four tenths" on the competition.

Bezzecchi himself stayed guarded, as he is wont to do. But he did let slip that he was slightly underwhelmed by his stint pace with the soft rear.

His big rival isn't who we expected

The answer as to why Bezzecchi isn't loving his soft-tyre pace might just be Fabio Di Giannantonio.

A look at the full times from second practice reveals a fairly stunning five-lap run from the VR46 man, all in the 1m29.1s-1m29.6s range. He does not appear to have the same edge of single-lap pace at Bezzecchi - but looks like a real threat, assuming a good-enough qualifying.

His burst of speed was noticed by the likes of Pedro Acosta and team-mate Franco Morbidelli, the latter describing Di Giannantonio's performance as "very strong but human" in contrast to Bezzecchi's "unbelievable" speed.

This didn't really flow out of testing. But Di Giannantonio himself claimed to be unsurprised by the performance, saying it was his first real chance to focus on performance over development work - and believing there's still a decent margin to be exploited.

KTM's a one-man show

Brad Binder did exceptional work to force his way into Q2, upstaging the likes of Maverick Vinales (who can't get his RC16 to cope with this particular rear tyre) and Enea Bastianini.

But all three of them are currently fighting for second-best in the KTM camp, and have shown no evidence of being able to lay a glove on Acosta.

The RC16's baseline at Buriram appears to be on the edge of Q1 and Q2, and Acosta outperformed that baseline considerably. He never once looked a doubt for Q2 and showed strong pace.

Both Binder and Vinales acknowledged they are being shown up by Acosta right now.

Yamaha's new reality

While there were the briefest of moments during the day where it looked like some Fabio Quartararo magic could somehow give the new V4 Yamaha a first Q2 appearance, ultimately that proved well out of reach.

It is notable that Quartararo's best time from the same session last year, on the refined inline-four bike, would have done the trick. 

But that's just how it is. This is a completely new bike project, and it would have taken a borderline miracle for it to be immediately scrapping with the four really strong rival packages. 

The miracle has not happened, and everyone seems to have accepted that - including the Honda-bound Quartararo, who admitted he had been too "optimistic" in his early expectations for the new bike.

The rookies are in the right range

Honda's new boy Diogo Moreira looked steady but unremarkable through the pre-season. On paper, this was a continuation of that trend - but actually this was Moreira's best day in MotoGP yet, and seemingly by quite a while.

He made a real mess of gathering his sectors together, as a rookie is entitled to do, especially in these rain-affected conditions, but the performance is there.

Rookies' gap to best stablemate on first Friday, 2025 and 2026

Ai Ogura, +0.330s

Toprak Razgatlioglu, +0.481s

Diogo Moreira, +0.584s

Somkiat Chantra, +0.888s

Fermin Aldeguer, +1.249s

Toprak Razgatlioglu's first Friday effort is pretty unimpeachable, too.

The World Superbike champion is concerned about his race pace, and admits he is still too aggressive on the initial braking, as was the concern ahead of his switch.

“I know everyone explained to me, especially Dovi [Yamaha tester Andrea Dovizioso], how I need to make the braking - OK, I understand, but when I try, it’s completely different," he explained.

But overall he, like Moreira, is already in the right range of performance.