MotoGP | Sepang Shakedown: the Honda and Yamaha starters on track for two days

Under the new concession rules, in 2024 Honda and Yamaha will be free to allow their regular riders to carry out private tests and will have a greater number of tires available for these than the rest of the MotoGP grid. This will allow four big names in the premier class, including two former world champions, to start their 2024 in next week's shakedown in Sepang.

In particular, the 2020 world champion and Honda rider, Joan Mir, will participate, as will the new purchase of the Tokyo manufacturer, Luca Marini, in two of the three days of the shakedown scheduled by the manufacturers between 1 and 3 February.

Another World Champion, this time from Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo, recently named Knight of the French Legion of Honor for the title won in 2021, will be another of the prominent riders we will see in Sepang next week. In particular, Fabio and the new driver of the Iwata company, Alex Rins, will take to the track on 2 and 3 February, Friday and Saturday of next week.

With them in Sepang there will also be test riders Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha) and Stefan Bradl (Honda), who will ride on all three days of testing, from Thursday to Saturday. The German is also involved in a private test this week (Wednesday and Thursday) in Jerez, taking advantage of the Superbike tests that are organized there.

In addition to Crutchlow and Bradl, the list of participants in the shakedown includes the KTM test team, led by Dani Pedrosa, the Aprilia tester, Lorenzo Savadori, and his colleague from Borgo Panigale, Michele Pirro, as well as the Japanese riders of Honda and Yamaha who will test the reliability and resistance of some parts.

Another rider who has received the green light to take to the track for the three days of testing on the Malaysian circuit is the reigning Moto2 world champion, the Spaniard Pedro Acosta. As a rookie rider, he has the right to participate in the shakedown, a test that will be his second opportunity to get behind the wheel of a MotoGP bike, in this case the KTM RC16 of the GasGas Tech3 team.

For Acosta who, like his predecessor Augusto Fernandez last year, is the only rookie in this year's premier class, the shakedown is the moment of truth. That of understanding how the Austrian prototype works and, in the official pre-season tests, which will be held again in Sepang from 6 to 8 February and in Qatar from 19 to 20 February, with all the riders on the grid, to compete with the protagonists of the championship to start understanding where he is compared to the fastest riders.

The 2024 MotoGP season will then kick off on the weekend of March 10 with the Qatar Grand Prix.