MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

It has been quite the day at the Sepang International Circuit. The first day of the official MotoGP test at Sepang and we are already three riders down. For the second consecutive year, Raul Fernandez has crashed during testing and ruled himself out of the remainder of the test, fracturing a metacarpal bone in his left hand, as well has his little toe. Fabio Di Giannantonio had a silly crash, landing a wheelie badly at the end of the day after doing his practice starts, and breaking his left collarbone.

But the biggest news is that Jorge Martin had a massive highside at Turn 2, after completing just a dozen laps. The force of the crash was so severe that he fractured the fifth metacarpal of his right hand and the third, fourth, and fifth metatarsals of his left foot. The injury on his right hand is to the head of the metacarpal, where the bone in the hand joins the bone of the little or pinky finger. The metatarsal bones are the long bones in his foot joining his ankle to his toes.

The injury to his right hand will probably rule the reigning world champion out for the Buriram test, which takes place next week, and will leave him to ride the fully homologated 2025 Aprilia RS-GP for the first time at the opening round of MotoGP in Buriram at the start of March.

The Blame Game

How did the crash happen? Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola spoke to a group of journalists at the circuit on Wednesday night to reassure us that the fault lay neither with the rider, nor with the bike.

"It was a bad crash for no reason – with no mistake on his side and no mistake on the bike’s side," Rivola told us. Nor was it a cold tire, he insisted. "Tires were in the right temperature and the right pressure. But we have no explanation in fact." Had he asked anyone for an explanation? "I just asked to know the history of the tire. If it’s a fresh one or an old one, they will tell you."

The insinuation was pretty clear, though Rivola worded his statements very carefully. "I think you should find your answer. I won’t tell you," he told journalists, an admonition for us to do our job. Which involves trying to get information out of Michelin.

Finger pointing

According to Michelin, the tire was newly made and shipped to Sepang and stored in climate-controlled conditions, as they always are. There was no immediately identifiable cause of Martin's crash.

The fact that there were quite a lot of crashes on the first day suggests that conditions were tricky. Martin's crash was the second in a row, the Aprilia rider having lost the front in Turn 1 the previous run, on the right side of the tire. He was completely unharmed in that crash, but was not so lucky in the second.

How did the crash happen? It was an off throttle highside, Rivola told us. We have seen off throttle highsides before, from Marc Márquez among others, when closing the throttle shifts weight forward and takes just enough load off the rear tire for it to start to slide and then grip again. And when it grips, so much force is put into the bike that it will flick the rider into the air.

Martin was using the medium rear tire, as were the majority of the grid. Test tire allocations are always limited at official tests, with four sets (four fronts, four rears) on the first day, and three sets each on the second and third days. That leaves the riders with a lot of their least favorite medium compounds, and not enough softs, to their mind. "We have the allocation. It’s tight. We have to start on M," Jack Miller said, one of many riders to note this.

Juggling the allocation

The medium rear always needs to be treated with care, but with conditions a little cooler than normal (official track temperature was 38°C, compared to 54° at the race last year), the tires weren't getting up to temperature quite as quickly. There were strong winds during the day as well, making riding complicated. The fact that so many riders crashed during the day is an indication of just how tricky conditions were.

This may sound a little wishy-washy, but the fact is that Martin was not the only rider to crash. Conditions were tricky, he was pushing on a new bike he wasn't completely familiar with, the tire he was using was not ideal for the circumstances, and Martin was keen to make a point. If you wanted to point the finger of blame, there are a vast range of scapegoats to suit any whim or prejudice.

It is also in Massimo Rivola and Aprilia's interest to protect their star rider. The last thing they want to do is to antagonize the reigning world champion who they coaxed away from Ducati to help them succeed. So clouding the waters suits them very well.

It does wreck Aprilia's carefully laid out plans as presented at the team launch in Milan. "At the team launch I said the goal was to make the phase 1, adaptation to each other as quick as possible. So far phase 1 has failed," Rivola said. That much is very clear.

Martin, along with Di Giannantonio and Fernandez all head back to Europe for surgery, and the hope of a speedy recovery. It has certainly complicated their preparation for the start of the 2025 MotoGP season.

What of the rest?

The crashes rather overshadowed the rest of the test, bearing the potentially massive consequences as they do. But as it was just the first day of a three-day test, there isn't as much to read into the test anyway.

Fabio Quartararo finished the test fastest, working with the new frame tested at Barcelona and updated for Sepang. The Monster Energy Yamaha rider was faster than the shakedown test, and faster than his own qualifying time - just - set in November last year. But there was a cautiously optimistic vibe from all of the Yamaha riders.

Jack Miller praised the front end of the Yamaha M1, but highlighted the compromise that makes motorcycle design such a dark art. "I’ve never ridden a motorcycle with a front end like it. It’s a blessing and it’s also a curse because you don’t know where the limit is. Even now you’re pushing, pushing, pushing and it stayed there," the Prima Pramac Yamaha rider said.

The price of such a fantastic front end is a less than stellar rear end, and a relative lack of grip. Honda find themselves in the same boat, with a front end that offers plenty of braking and turning, but robs the rear of grip. The trick is to try to change the balance of the bike to such a degree that you increase rear grip without sacrificing too much of the front end feel. You pays your money and you makes your choice, as my father used to say.

Much can be gained in electronics, and that was something that all of the factories are working on. Even Ducati, who have the Magneti-Marelli system down pat. But electronics is also where the Yamaha and Honda stand to gain the most, where they have struggled.

Happy Honda

At Honda, Joan Mir declared he had the best day of testing in his time at Honda, and was remarkably upbeat in his media debrief. He said the new chassis gave him more turning and better braking, and the confidence in the front end that he needed. The Honda RC213V still lacked grip and lacked power, but a new engine was on the cards for Thursday, which might help.

Honda's experiments with weight distribution are characterized by the bulbous pilot whale of a tail section, which may house a mass damper or may just house a lot of electronics, moved to the rear to change the balance of the bike. The design is not final, Johann Zarco insisted, saying that he expected a rear wing to reappear. The rear wing made a palpable difference in braking, and he missed it when it was gone.

Power mad

Finally, for the moment, to Ducati. The Ducati Lenovo riders were working on the 2025 engine, which both has more power and has a smoother power delivery. A concerning thing to hear, if you are not on a Ducati GP25, given their domination last year. The engine still needed work, but it was close to being finalized.

That is crucial for Ducati, for Aprilia, and for KTM. They have to get their engines ready for the next two years, as the engine design they homologate at Buriram will have to last until the end of the 2026, to free up capacity and reduce the costs of developing a new engine for the new technical regulations set to be introduced in 2027.

For Marc Márquez, coming off the GP23, the improvement in braking was enormous, which he proved by setting the second fastest time just behind Fabio Quartararo on the GP24 chassis and GP25 engine. For Pecco Bagnaia, who knows how good the GP24 was in braking, the new bike still needed work.

Finding the balance

"From my point of view, the engine is working very well on the exit for the power delivery. But we have to improve the braking. But we already know what to do," Bagnaia said. As Bagnaia and Márquez haven't tested the new frame yet - that was Fabio Di Giannantonio's job, which he acquitted well over an entire day, until his mishap with the practice starts after the session had finished - the issues with braking must be coming from the engine.

It wasn't power delivery or torque, Bagnaia believed. "I think it’s more the construction of the engine. It’s not the inertia of the engine. Maybe the set up which we have to change a bit."

Today was just the first day of a three-day test, and as dramatic as it may have been, it is way too early to be drawing any definite conclusions from it. Other, perhaps, than the fact that for Jorge Martin, Raul Fernandez, and Fabio Di Giannantonio, the preseason is off to a terrible start. There are still two days left, a whole mountain of parts to test for each factory, and the prospect of two more days of dry conditions. Let's see what Thursday and Friday bring us.

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