Marco Bezzecchi finished Friday’s Practice at Sepang sixth, but the result alone did not define his view of the opening day. The Aprilia rider was within half a second of Marc Marquez’s benchmark time and described the day as fantastic compared with his Malaysian weekend in 2025. Bezzecchi finished 11th in last year’s Grand Prix, making the stronger opening especially welcome.

The performance also carries weight for a rider who has collected five victories this season. Bezzecchi judged his race pace to be competitive, while identifying the time attack as the area where he was less convincing. He also admitted that his riding was not clean enough, with more mistakes than he wanted, leaving a clear target for the rest of the weekend.

Bezzecchi expects Marc and Alex Marquez, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Pedro Acosta to provide the main opposition in the races. Aprilia is dealing with a difficult rider situation at the same time. Jorge Martin arrived at Sepang with a fractured wrist from his Phillip Island crash and missed most of Practice after a front-end scare at Turn 13. The team is running three riders after Raul Fernandez withdrew with a broken finger suffered at Mandalika three weeks earlier.