Francesco Bagnaia is anticipating a change in the competitive order of MotoGP this season after a strong showღing from Yamaha in the opening preseason test in Malaysia.

Grand Prix’s premier class has been dominated by Euro🏅pean manufacturers in recent years, with the two remaining Japanese brands – Honda and Yamaha – falling to the bottom of the pecking order in both﷽ 2023 and 2024, as Aprilia and KTM have risen to be Ducati’s closest challengers.

Bagn𒀰aia, however, suggested that this could change in 2025, after Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo wᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚas the only non-Ducati rider to lap in the 1:56s on the final day of the Sepang test.

“I 𓆉think that we will have a switch in terms of who will be behind Ducati during this season,” Bagnaia said following the conclusion of this week’s three-day test in Sepang.

“I think Yamaha did a very good job, but we have to 🐠wait for Thailand because they did six days of test [Yamaha also took part in the Shakedown with all four race riders t📖hanks to their concessions status], so maybe some performance also comes from this.

“But it’s true that Fabio [Quartararo] had fantastic pace on all three days, and the time attack, that was one weak🍷 point [of Yamaha] from last year, was fast today.

“So, I think that they did a very good job.”

Pecco Bagnaia summarises Sepang test

Ba🙈gnaia did add some caveats, though, mostly regarding limitations of꧒ his own testing programme that left limited time for hot lapping.

“Fཧrom my personal perspective, this test I didn’t have the chance to really push like I wanted,” he said.

“My configuration of the tiꦏme attack was able to beat the lap time, but with just one time attack it was difficult to♍ explode like I’m [normally] doing when I do a time attack.

“But, apart from tꦓhat I’m hap🙈py that all the jobs done were useful for us to understand where to improve and to understand which base to decide to use in Thailand.”

Quartararo’s time attack performance was🔯 not th🍌e only eye-catching headline time, as at the very top of the list was Alex Marquez at the end of day three.

The Gresini Ducati rider inherits this year the Ducati Desmosedici GP24 that dominated last season and whose engine is still in consideration for the factory team, with Bagnaia in particular miss🔯ing its braking characteristics compared to the 2025 engine.

So, does Ma꧒rquez’s performance on the GP24 make things more complicated when d🌞eciding on which engine to choose for the upcoming season – and, indeed, for 2026 as a result of the incoming development freeze.

“For me, no,” Bagnaia said, “because, honestly, it’s clear that when you have to do many things, when you have to try many things, a bit of the performance goes away – it’s normal 𝔍that it’s like this.

“For example, this morning I just asked to my team ‘Let me do one time ඣattack, I want it’.

“I didn’t have the chance to do two or three like other riders did, just because♎ we needed to be more focused on working.

“But I know that we are just engineers riding bikes because we neeꦫd to test for them, we need to kౠeep our maximum performance for them, and the performance is taken a bit apart.”

Split configurations

Bagnaia was able to🍃 lap in the 1:56s on the final day, jus👍t 0.007 seconds adrift of Marquez’s benchmark, but his 1:56.500 was also almost 0.3 seconds adrift of his pole position time from last November.

However, the three-times World Cham🐈pion was happ🐻y with his test as a whole.

“Three positive days, honestly,” Bag🉐naia co🙈ncluded at the end of the test.

“We had time – not enough – but 🎃we had time to filter many things and we tested more or less everything.

“We were unlucky that Diggia [Fabio Di Giannantonio] was out of the test because he could help us a lot, but ♔with Marc [Marquez] we did a fantastic job.”

Bagn💯aia and Marquez both completed Sprint simulations, with the latter having an average lap time around 0.3 seconds faster than Bag🐻naia.

The Italian didn’t address this difference directly, but did note 𒁏a difference in “configurations” between his bike and Marquez’s for those 10-lap simulations.

“Also toda🎃y we decided to go with two different configurations of the bike for the simulations, just to give more data as possible to the engineers and it was super-useful,” Bagnaia said.

He added: “For the Sprint simulation [...] I need🃏ed to sacrifice a bit the performance to try something during the simulation and I wasn’t that happy during it because something came out, I was having a bit of vibration – was not the same as last year, but lap-bꩲy-lap was [getting] worse.”

Part of𝓀 the difference between 🦩Bagnaia’s specification and Marquez’s for the final day was the chassis.

“I can just say that we were doing differeꦇnt jobs,” Bagnaia said.

“We used two different ways during the day, and one thing that I tried more than Marc w﷽as ꧒the chassis compared to him.”

The impression was positive, but the Italian would like to try💧 it in conditions with less grip, conditions he hopes to find in Thailand next week.

“I liked it, but like everything, more or less, it has bad and good [𝐆points], so I want to try it better in Thailand.

“We♚ need a lower level of grip, because today was like– I was exiting with a new thing, I was coming back, I was going faster, but then I was improving again with the new things. So, it’s difficult to understand when the leﷺvel of grip is like this.”