Honda’s full factory project has strugꦯgled to reach the heights many expected in recent seasons, however, a new bike for 2024 has Vierge very excited about the upcoming WorldSBK campaign.

Testing ♔the new 🍷machine for the first time during a two-day test at Jerez, which concluded yesterday, Vierge backed up the comments made by team-mate Lecuona who said it’s a step forward.

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Vierge told WorldSBK.com: “We are🦋 happy. It has been a really good two days of testing and track conditions have been really good, so we can do maᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚny laps. 

“The first test has been more about adapting ourselves to the new bike. We didn’t want to change too much. We rode with the base setup that they prepared for us Tetsuta i♔n Japan. The first impressions have been really good. 

“The bike lookജs similar but there are many changes. We really feel the strong po💫ints. 

“At the moment, we can’t take enough advantage about🥂 the new strong points but it’s just the beginn🎐ing; we didn’t change many things on the bike, we just did laps to see how everything works. 

“Really happy and no𝓀w we have some weeks to analyse 🙈all this data and to prepare a new plan for Portimao. We have another day before the winter break.”

Vierge started the test wi꧑th the 2023-spec bike but as soon as he switched there was an immediate improvement.

The former Moto2 rider said: “I started with the old biᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚke and when I jumped on the new bike, I immediately felt some strong points compared to the old bike. 

“We had t🎃wo years with the old bike so, at the beginning, I felt a little bit strange in some areas. During these🎐 two days, I was able to adapt and start to feel better. 

“Right now, we are going a little bit faster than with the old bike, but the good point is that with the old bike, we always feel like we’re on the l꧟imit and we don’t know how to go faster, with this bike it’s like there’s a lot of room to improve. 

“We need to understand the direc🌼tion to follow to take profit from all the new things.”