Franco Morbidelli: “Marco Bezzecchi bouncing back, did a great job”

Franco Morbidelli has praised Pertamina VR46 predecessor Marco Bezzecchi for ‘bouncing back’ during MotoGP pre-season testing for Aprilia.

Bezzecchi plummeted from third in the 2023 MotoGP standings to twelfth last year, but his previous form convinced Aprilia to sign the young Italian to its factory team alongside Jorge Martin.

But when reigning world champion Martin was injured on the opening day of the Sepang test, Bez was suddenly propelled into leading the development of the 2025 RS-GP.

The triple race winner rose to the challenge by finishing the pre-season third fastest, and setting the best Sprint simulation, at the Buriram test.

“Marco is going very quick. He did a 29.0,” said Morbidelli. “He did a great job in this pre-season, bouncing back in a good way from last season.”

Morbidelli's 1m 29.060s was just 0.205s behind the test best by Marc Marquez.

But while Marquez was 0.155s slower than new Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia's pole lap at last October's Thai Grand Prix, Bezzecchi beat Aprilia's best qualifying time (Maverick Vinales, tenth) by 0.568s.

“There's a big group behind Marc Marquez”

Morbidelli, the 2020 title runner-up at Petronas Yamaha, took the first steps in his own MotoGP recovery last year, overcoming a pre-season head injury to regularly break into the top six as team-mate to Martin at Pramac.

Bringing the Desmosedici GP24 with him as he arrives ‘home’ to VR46, Morbidelli was in the top four on each day of the Sepang test (fastest on day two), then ranked third and seventh at Buriram.

Buriram also included a race simulation that put him at the head of a close group of riders - alongside KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Gresini’s Alex Marquez - in contention for best of the rest behind Marc Marquez.

“The conditions were really hot, but we did the long run for the race distance,” Morbidelli said. “Pace was decent. Looks like there's a big group behind Marc, who is a little bit ahead of everybody on this track.

“That's how it looks. But things can change pretty quick.”

Morbidelli feels his time attack needs the most work ahead of the Thai season opener, but emphasised:

“We were very quick in this test. We did the best we could, and we are in the mix. So our chances [this year] are pretty open.”

Morbidelli’s team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio, who has a factory-spec bike this year, was absent from Buriram after breaking his collarbone at Sepang.