Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team’s Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins started the two-day Thailand MotoGP Official Test by getting a solid number of laps in and confirming their Sepang Test findings. The teammates ended Day 1 in 12th and 13th place respectively in the combined rankings.
The Buriram test days consist of two riding sessions (Session 1 from 10:00-13:00 GMT +7 and Session 2 from 13:20-18:00) with an extra 15-minute practice-start session in between.
As the Chang International Circuit will also be hosting the opening GP of the season in a little over two weeks’ time, the two riders and crew were all the more keen to work through their testing programme.
After the warm welcome to Thailand at the MotoGP Season Launch event a few days prior, Rins was feeling reenergised. He had been looking forward to trying the 2025 M1 at another track and completed 44 laps in Session 1 and 29 laps in Session 2. His best morning time of 1’30.861s had him rank 14th, 1.212s from first, before his lunch break. In the afternoon, he dropped a 1’30.206s that moved him up to 11th place in the Session-2 results and 12th position in the combined session classifications, 1.022s from the top.
Quartararo was fully focused on crossing items off his testing to-do list. The Frenchman ran a total of 45 laps in the morning, and 33 laps in the afternoon. His fastest Session-1 time was a 1’30.654s, putting him in 11th place, 1.005s from first. In the afternoon he improved to a 1’30.233s, but it didn’t have him move up the order. He finished the second session in 12th position and took 13th place in the combined Day-1 timesheets, with a 1.049s gap to the fastest time.
Álex Rins
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
Today was very warm, but it was a good day. We compared the parts we tested in Sepang again and confirmed our findings here. This afternoon I tried the new front Michelin tyres, and I put in a new soft tyre as well just to see where we are. Let’s see how tomorrow goes, when the grip gets a bit better. I haven’t had a chance to check the pace yet. We will try to find a set-up improvement tomorrow and just get ready for the first GP.
Fabio Quartararo
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
I rode a lot today, trying to be fast. Let’s see if I can ride the way I want to if the track improves tomorrow. We tried a few things today that can be positive, but I wasn’t riding well, so hopefully we can find something tomorrow and make the tyres adapt to us. I do think that we have made some steps, but today we were just struggling with other things, like the grip. But we’re in quite a good position. The bike performance is quite good.
