Though Honda has an unchanged factory MotoGP team line-up of Joan Mir and Luca Marini for 2025, there’s been a significant enhancement for its test team - and the racers already think that will prevent key “mistakes” of 2024 being repeated.
Newly retired race riders Aleix Espargaro and Taka Nakagami now make up Honda’s main test team, with grand prix winner Espargaro bringing fresh input from Aprilia’s rise and Nakagami having spent the last seven seasons racing Hondas for LCR.
Both Mir and Marini had their race weekends constantly disrupted in 2024 as they made the most of Honda’s new concession status allowing additional development and worked to develop new parts for the RC213V rather than preparing for Sunday’s race.
Now they’re preparing to start the 2025 season in arguably the best position Honda has been in for a few years, after a cautiously optimistic pre-season testing programme in which the team lapped Sepang and Buriram faster than any Honda rider has ever gone in the past and with a reduced gap to the dominant Ducatis.
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Honda’s test efforts had previously been led on the European side by Stefan Bradl - who had technically not been a full-time MotoGP racer since 2016, even though wildcards and injury stand-ins (including a near-full 2020 campaign in place of Marc Marquez) led to 46 more grand prix starts for Bradl over those eight years.
Espargaro and Nakagami’s new roles have reassured Mir and Marini that they will have more freedom to focus on their own racing, and won’t get development parts until they’ve already been proven by the test riders - which they think means Honda is on a path back towards better results in 2025.
“Now the good thing is that we have a very strong test team,” 2020 world champion Mir explained.
“That will allow us to be a little more relaxed.
“We will work with our base, and they will work to improve the base. We will not try anything that is not better, and I think that this is the way to do it.
“Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes of last year and not fall into these things.”
Marini didn’t go as far as Mir in regarding 2024’s approach as a mistake, feeling it was the right structure to follow at the time. But he’s definitely keen for Honda’s new way forward.
“We had many things to try. We lost many Fridays,” Marini admitted.
“But in the position we were in last year, if you don’t do it like this then you’re just waiting and wasting some time.
“OK, the rider can have more feeling, can know the bike better, but the positions will always be the same.
“In that moment, it was good for me working like this, because it’s the correct mentality to try and bring us more material, new material. You try [regardless of] if it is working or not.
“This year for sure I hope the organisation with the test team will be better.”
One thing that should help that better organisation within the test team is the addition of former LCR Honda satellite racer Nakagami, who joins not just as a key part of the test programme but with a self-appointed role as translator between the racers and HRC’s Japanese engineering base.
“It doesn’t depend so much on the riders but for sure Aleix and Taka will do a great job and also Taka speaking Japanese can be very precise and can explain the situation very well,” Marini added.
“But also the organisation that is around must be super precise because it’s super easy even with two very good and fast riders to lose the way.
“I think Taka will be the key of the test team. With many Japanese engineers, it’s not so easy speaking in English because the languages are super different, but with Taka working on this side I hope we can make the difference.”
