Honda does its "homework": no revolutions, but tangible growth

Alberto Puig takes stock of Honda’s tests, praises the help from LCR and Moreira’s progress. “But we mustn’t put pressure on him.”

MotoGP has certainly just wrapped up testing, but Honda is already sending some interesting signals. The final standings only half reflect the values on track—not everyone set their time at the end—but the pace of the four riders isn’t bad at all (data here). It’s not the time to say there have been major steps forward—the race weekends will tell us that—but there has been some progress, both with the established trio of Joan Mir, Luca Marini, and Johann Zarco, and with the rookie Diogo Moreira. Over these days, work has been done in all areas, looking for confirmation after the previous tests, to have a solid base to start the season.

“As I said in Sepang, we’ve made some progress. We’re not there yet, but compared to the same time last year, we’re happier.” This is how Alberto Puig begins to sum up the work done at Honda over the five days of winter testing between Malaysia and Thailand. He then explains the development work on the RC-V: “It’s not a revolution, but an evolution of small parts that can help improve performance. We’re still looking for something that will make us even happier, but we can say we did our homework over the winter.” Small steps—progress has been made. “But you always aim to improve, you’ll never have the perfect bike, and you’re always trying to do more,” added the Honda HRC team manager to motogp.com at the end of the two days of testing. “We’re trying to follow the riders’ feedback to understand where we’re behind compared to others. Balance is also needed, so you don’t improve in one area and maybe lose in another.”

Lucio Cecchinello’s team has long been a valuable support for the factory squad and, more generally, for the Golden Wing brand. “We have four bikes and four factory riders; there isn’t a Team A and a Team B,” Puig emphasized. “But it’s been like this for years; for us, it’s the right way to raise the level and gather more data.” In the LCR box is one of the two much-talked-about newcomers to MotoGP, Diogo Moreira. The young Brazilian made history in Moto2; the step up to the premier class is certainly no walk in the park, but let’s remember that Cecchinello highlighted in previous tests the rookie’s approach: he’s sensitive, attentive, precise when explaining his feelings to the engineers. And not only that. “If a rider is fast… He’s fast!” said Alberto Puig. “And he is fast and intelligent. However, we mustn’t make the mistake of putting too much pressure on him to get results right away. Now he just needs to go out and learn from others—understand how the bike works, the tires, overtaking… By mid-season, he’ll take a step forward.”