The 2024 FIM Grand Prix World Championship season commences this week, March 8-10, at the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar.
Gresini Racing Team makes its seventh consecutive appearance in the premier class of motorcycle road racing since 2018. For the new 2024 season, the team fields the Spanish Marcqz brothers in MotoGP: Alex Marquez on the #73 bike and Marc Marquez on the #93.
On Friday, the MotoGP category kicked off with two free practice sessions (FP1 and FP2). Unlike last year’s rule where the top ten aggregate times from FP1 and FP2 qualified directly for Q2, the 2024 season introduces a change where the top ten lap times from the Practice Race (PR) secure spots in Q2. As a result, Friday’s practices were purely focused on setup work.
During FP1, Marcquez set the fourth-fastest time with a 1 minute 52.801-second best lap, demonstrating strong adaptation to the Ducati Desmosedici GP23, reaching a top speed of 348.3 km/h. Alex Marquez posted the eleventh-fastest lap at 1 minute 53.25 seconds. In the wet FP2, Marcquez topped the timesheets with a 2 minute 06.544-second lap, while his brother managed ninth place with a 2 minute 08.103-second effort.
Commenting on the day, Marcquez said, “It was the first official day with the new bike, and it’s important to start well without overloading ourselves. Despite the rain, everything went smoothly. It was a strange day with no attempt at improving lap times, which has been moved to tomorrow (the PR). My goal is to qualify for Q2, and I feel good both in dry and wet conditions. We’ll keep pushing tomorrow to discover more about the bike’s characteristics. There are three or four riders quicker than me in dry conditions, so we need to keep working step by step.”
Alex Marquez shared, “The first day went well. This morning, we were able to address some issues from the previous tests under different conditions. The results didn’t quite match our expectations, though, and the afternoon rain disrupted our plans. Tomorrow will be a stressful Saturday, so we need a good night’s sleep.”