Marco Bezzecchi identifies area where “my riding is not good enough”

Marco Bezzecchi insists he must improve his time attacks to match his Aprilia’s potential.

Just 18th at the end of Aprilia’s dark opening day at the Sepang MotoGP test, Bezzecchi’s single lap progress saw him climb to ninth on days two and three. Buriram was even better, with third place on both days.

However, Bezzecchi’s most head-turning performance came in a final day Sprint simulation, where he matched the pace of October’s Ducati race winner Enea Bastianini and was the fastest rider over 13 laps.

The reality check came from new factory Ducati rider Marc Marquez, who was only a fraction slower than Bezzecchi after 13 laps… then continued for another 10 laps!

But that didn’t diminish the clear progress for Bezzecchi and Aprilia, given the top RS-GP had finished in 14th place and almost 20 seconds from Sprint victory just a few months ago.

The same leap was seen during Bezzecchi’s time attacks when he was 0.205s behind Marc Marquez compared to the 0.928s margin for former Aprilia rider Maverick Vinales in qualifying for last year’s grand prix (9th).

Bezzecchi also revealed he has a clear margin to improve, with his best lap far from perfect.

“I have to say that the bike is working well but still in the time attacks my riding is not enough good for the Aprilia,” he said.

“I need to adapt better, especially to the braking, because the bike is a bit more nervous with new tyres. So I have to be more precise let's say. This was the main issue.

“I made some small mistakes but anyway I’m happy because the lap time was good. So overall I can't complain.”

Now the #72 has just over a week to wait until the start of the season opener Thai Grand Prix.

“Finally, we start racing because testing is too boring!” he grinned.

Marco Bezzecchi impresses at Aprilia

Bezzecchi caught the eye in Sepang and Buriram testing for his authority after new teammate Jorge Martin’s injury on the first day.

Reigning MotoGP champion Martin’s accident after just 13 laps of pre-season testing at Sepang left team-mate Bezzecchi to carry development of the new Aprilia RS-GP.

Like Martin, Bezzecchi has only ever raced a Ducati.

But while the Spaniard was a factory-spec rider for Pramac, with experience evaluating new Desmosedici parts, the Italian always raced year-old machines.

With the future direction of the RS-GP project suddenly depending on his every word, Bezzecchi admitted “I didn’t really know what to do” at the beginning.

But Aprilia kept faith in his feedback and Bezzecchi’s confidence grew over the remaining four days of testing, two more at Sepang and two at Buriram.