The Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team starts with positive feelings the 2026 pre-season at the Sepang International Circuit: Di Giannantonio is second and Morbidelli is tenth at the end of Day 1.
The engines start up again at the Sepang International Circuit, where the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team is taking part to the Official MotoGP winter test. The first day ended today, with Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli focusing on readapting to the MotoGP after the winter break. They regained familiarity aboard the Ducati DesmosediciGP and had positive feelings.
It was a great start to the pre-season for Di Giannantonio, who found again the feeling with his factory bike right from the start, completing 51 laps overall. In the final stages of the afternoon session, Fabio led the timesheet. He closed Day 1 in second place of the combined classification with 1’57”274 as his fastest lap of the day.
Morbidelli’s 2026 started in Sepang: after missing the Valencia test due to his hand injury, Franco was focused on gaining feelings with his new package in Day 1 in Malaysia. The first day of testing was good for the Italian-Brazilian too, with 45 laps overall. His fastest one – in 1’58”068 – allowed him to end Day 1 in tenth place in the combined classification.
The Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team is back on track tomorrow for the second day of testing at the Sepang International Circuit.
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“I am happy to be back, the feeling with the bike was really good, and I am very satisfied with how we started this year, with a proper physical preparation during the winter. Moreover, this is my first time in MotoGP that I have the same crew for the second consecutive year, and it makes a lot of difference. I haven’t tried the new fairing yet; it’s planned for tomorrow. We worked on the areas where I was missing things, but it’s just some detail because the bike is already great. I am happy because the things Ducati brought are going in the same direction that I wanted. Today, everything was quite smooth with all these things together. Let’s keep working and doing this good job.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“It was a positive first day, especially this morning. This afternoon I faced some difficulties, I couldn’t be as quick as I wanted, but it was just the first day. Let’s see if tomorrow these difficulties come out again, hopefully not. Today we got used to the new package, and the positive aspect is that the bike is gentler in acceleration and braking. The goal for tomorrow is to continue with our work plan with this new package, and we will try to be quicker and to try other things on the bike in order to improve our speed.”
