World Champion Pecco Bagnaia, Marc Marquez, Marco Bezzecchi and Valentino Rossi were all on track on Monday in Portimao, as the MotoGP™ stars shake off the cobwebs ahead of the Sepang Test getting underway next week. Riding alongside some leading WorldSBK contenders, the premier class riders jumped aboard standard Superbike machinery for the day.
Lenovo Ducati’s Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini were joined by Prima Pramac Racing’s Franco Morbidelli, Pertamina Enduro VR46’s Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio, plus the Gresini Racing duo of Marc and Alex Marquez. The seven were seen riding Ducati Panigale V4S machines, whilst Repsol Honda’s Luca Marini was also in attendance on a Honda Fireblade.
Completing the full line-up of VR46 Academy men in Portimao was Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Celestino Vietti, plus the boss himself, with Rossi riding an impressive-looking Yamaha R1 as the nine-time World Champion kept his eye in on two wheels.
Why did Marc Márquez quit a hugely lucrative factory Repsol Honda ride to race a second-hand Ducati for an independent team? The six-time MotoGP World Champion ended the first half of the 2023 season crashing Honda’s uncompetitive RC213V seven times during June’s German and Dutch Grands Prix.
Even for Márquez, who has always ridden on the ragged edge, that was a lot. He knew he couldn’t go on like this. “After the summer break I said to myself, ‘I will ride more calmly,’ so I started riding in a safety way,” says the 30-year-old Spaniard. “But that was so boring! For me it was like a nightmare to go to a circuit and ride in easy mode and fight for 15th place. I said to myself, ‘Can I do one more year like this?’ ”
