Record pace from lap one: the first demand of MotoGP
Do MotoGP riders get rusty? Do they lose the speed?
By Adam Wheeler
Testing, concessions, injuries and four anxious manufacturers eager to break Ducati’s hegemony means elite wildcards appearances and test riders have become frequent Grand Prix sights in the last three years. Dani Pedrosa showed the validity of ‘part-time’ contributions with his impressive 4th place at Misano for the 2023 San Marino Grand Prix and was partly responsible for KTM’s surge from backmarkers to winners in just five seasons.
Test rider employment has also become a route and a cushion for racers to ease out of the adrenaline zone and public spotlight of MotoGP while still sampling the thrill of 350kmph on two wheels. It’s a specialist position, attracting former GP winners like Pedrosa, Stefan Bradl, Andrea Dovizioso, the Espargaro brothers, Cal Crutchlow and Augusto Fernandez.
At last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix Aleix Espargaro joined Fernandez and Lorenzo Savadori (the Italian filling-in for the absent Jorge Martin in factory Aprilia colours) to make up 23-rider grid.
While Savadori (32-years-old) and Fernandez (27) have been competing in 2025 as replacements, Jerez was Espargaro’s (35) first GP turnout since his last race as a full-time Pro at Barcelona last November.
Aside from the physical and mental drain of steering a 157kg MotoGP prototype, all three talked about the mandate of roaming limits and being close to lap record pace from the opening rounds of practice on Friday. MotoGP affords only a 45-minute Free Practice session on Friday to sort settings and get competitive before the afternoon Practice ranking already counts for the Q1 and Q2 organisation.
“I really missed a little bit of track action before the wildcard,” HRC’s Espargaro admitted as a reasonable 11th in FP1 turned into 21st for Practice on Friday. “It’s been many months that I didn’t throw a soft tyre and risked [all] and in the focus mode of the weekend. Obviously being HRC test rider you have to give 100%...”
“Getting the speed back,” Fernandez said, was the hardest part of his duties substituting for the injured Miguel Oliveira at Pramac Yamaha. “I didn’t realise I would lose that speed, that fast, and talking with Aleix his feeling from FP1 was a little bit the same. The pace is something else.”
MotoGP racers normally reacclimatize to speed at the traditional pre-season test in Malaysia after the obligatory two-month winter break, but then this orientation is stimulated every two weeks from March to November thanks to the Grands Prix.
“To stay fast on the MotoGP bike you need to race, a lot,” Savadori says. “If you stop for two-three races it’s not simple to return to top level. I did four races this year but I am testing, so I am not racing for my personal performance but for Aprilia and to improve the bike. Maybe it is a different situation with other riders.”
Fernandez’s teammate Jack Miller spoke of the 20-30kg extra aerodynamic load on the front end of the motorcycle while stopping at the end of Jerez’s 299kmph straight. Jerez itself has eleven braking points, one of the highest amounts on the MotoGP calendar. It is also one of the top ten circuits in the championship for braking stress. There are very narrow margins of metres and seconds for riders to make a difference on the stopwatch.
“Going out there and looking for the lap record from lap one is something different!” Fernandez adds. “It’s something we know…but after only a couple of months out we miss this final speed. I have been catching the group and making small improvements. Finding that last second is so hard. I have been making improvements and was only 2-3 tenths from [Alex] Rins’ pace and the next Yamaha. It’s not where I want to be but with job I have this year and to be testing a lot of things it is difficult to be there all the time.”
Riding a two-million-euro MotoGP bike is rare enough. There are limited tests available for brands that don’t have full concessions. Racers use motocross bikes, superbikes, flat track, minibikes at kart tracks and private track sessions to keep the feeling of a throttle but most say it is a world away from the criteria of their ‘day job’. There is even a difference for those running constant MotoGP test laps to the intensity of a Grand Prix. For this reason, Pedrosa has popped up on the grid in 2021, 2023 and 2024 since his retirement in 2019.
Fernandez, Espargaro and Savadori were the last classified riders at Jerez, and crossed the line 16th, 17th and 18th respectively. All three outside the points, but this wasn’t their objective anyway. The psychological crush to produce results, appease the team and deal with the public attention is something that test riders and wildcards have easier compared to their full-time peers. Fernandez has a unique status because he is testing for Yamaha while vying for a return to the grid for 2026. The retired Espargaro however experienced the ‘MotoGP-lite’ scenario for the first time in Jerez.
“You have the pressure always, you have the tension, you want more, you are here to deliver…but this was the first time in my career that I didn't have this feeling,” said the Catalan who won two GPs I 2023 and a Sprint in 2024. “I mean, obviously I pushed myself to the limit, but I was happy on the grid, it's a place that I hate, it's the worst place on earth for me. But today I was quite chill, I enjoyed.”
Photos by CormacGP/HRC and Yamaha Racing