Qualifying
Both Red Bull KTM Tech3 riders showed solid pace from the outset in Q1. Bastianini slotted into eighth on his first push, while Viñales placed himself just ahead in P7.

As the session unfolded, the Tech3 team-mates briefly swapped positions on the leaderboard, underlining how evenly matched they were in the heat of the battle. On his last flying lap, Top Gun delivered his best effort of the session to cement 17th on the grid overall, while Bastianini dropped down to 20th.

Raúl Fernández and Franco Morbidelli claimed the coveted top-two spots for promotion to Q2, and the former would go on to take third behind Marc Marquez in P2 and Marco Bezzecchi on pole by just 0.035s.

Sprint
It was a bruising opening Sprint of the season for Viñales. Tucked towards the back of the pack in the opening exchanges, the Spaniard ran off at the first corner and immediately found himself on the back foot.

Dropping to 21st, Top Gun struggled to recover momentum in the short-format contest. Although he was able to make up a position before the chequered flag, Viñales ultimately crossed the line in 20th, salvaging what he could from a difficult outing.

Starting from 20th, Bastianini quietly pieced together a more progressive Sprint. The Italian worked his way up to 18th during the race, showing flashes of pace as others faltered. The Beast’s top speed was the sixth fastest of the race as he crossed the line in 17th.

Two crashes ahead - most notably from pole-sitter Marco Bezzecchi - helped shuffle the order and move the Tech3 riders forward. Further up the field, a dramatic clash between Marc Márquez and Pedro Acosta ended with a penalty for Márquez - a decision that secured the KTM rider his maiden Sprint win.

Red Bull KTM Tech3 will be back tomorrow for the main event of the Grand Prix of Thailand, which will kick off at 15:00 (UTC+7) for 26 action-packed laps as the #12 and #23 bikes push to climb the order.

Enea Bastianini: "It was a challenging day. From yesterday to today the feeling changed quite a lot, especially in the hotter conditions, and that made it difficult to stop the bike and find rear grip. We know we can do better than this, but right now we need to understand clearly where the limitation is. The focus is to stay calm, work through the data and improve step by step. It’s only the first weekend of the season, and we have time to react."

Maverick Viñales: "Honestly, I have no words – today has been a tough day. At the moment it’s not coming together for us — especially over one lap and in the Sprint — and that makes it hard to fight the way we want to. The potential is there — we’ve seen that — but we need to make it consistent and give me a package that allows me to push and race properly. Tomorrow is another opportunity to take a step."

Nicolas Goyon, Team Manager: "Today’s result is clearly not the way the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team wanted to launch its 2026 campaign. This morning was somewhat disappointing - the target over the winter was to improve our Qualifying performance, and unfortunately, we did not achieve that, with 17th position for Viñales and 20th on the grid for Bastianini. Starting that far back makes it extremely difficult to fight for the positions we are targeting.

The Sprint result is therefore a disappointment and clearly below our expectations, especially when you see Pedro Acosta winning on the same bike. The only thing we can do now is keep our heads down and continue working - the bike has the potential for much more than what we showed today."