The 2023 MotoGP pre-season test at Sepang saw something of an unusual appearance on the final day when Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez took to the track on a bike that looks like something that’s now considered a MotoGP museum piece: an RC213V completely devoid of the usual winglets at the front.
Turning heads when he headed out at the hottest part of Sunday at the Malaysian circuit, it led to many immediately questioning why Honda would take such a radical step, given the importance of aerodynamics to modern-day MotoGP machines, and how fundamentally integrated into the bikes’ overall design they are.
However, while the two laps that Marquez completed might have been something novel, it’s also nothing we’re doing to see more of in the future from Honda, with the test rather being more about resetting the bike back to zero following the arrival of new technical manager Ken Kawauchi from Suzuki.
Taking over from long-time team boss Takeo Yokohama at Sepang for the first time, the ex-Suzuki engineer replaces someone who has been at the Japanese factory for literally the entirety of its aero development work and, according to Marquez, who is keen to start at zero to learn the fundamentals of the RC213-V.
“You saw it?” he laughed when asked about it by The Race. “I thought that it was very warm at that time and no one would be on the track!
“As I said yesterday, with a new technical director arriving in HRC, in Honda, he wants to understand many things about the concept. This makes life very difficult for a rider at a test, but of course the guy inside Honda with the most experience riding is me, and they chose me to try all these experimental things just to understand them.
“Of course, it’s not the way, but they try to understand many different things about the concept. I don’t understand why, but they want to know. Of course they will have a reason, but I wasn’t asking why. I was just riding and trying.
“This one was the most visual, but we tried many things for them on the bike during these three days, and I hope they got a lot of information.”
However, his comments also reflected just how important the wings have become to a MotoGP bike of late, with the former six-time world champion admitting that removing what has become a fundamental part from the bike has completely changed how it feels.
“It was difficult, because the bike balance was very different,” he explained. “It was much more physical, because the bike was shaking everywhere, but I hope it was useful for them.”
Test rider Stefan Bradl also ran without the winglets during the day.
