Takaaki Nakagami: 2024 Honda ‘completely different, easy to reach max performance’
Takaaki N💝akagami says the 2024 Honda MotoGP bike is allowing him to reach maximum performance in an easier fashion than last season.
2023 was one of Honda’s worst years in the MotoGP era, and after losing 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Marc Marquez to Ducati, hope for a big turnaround looked bleak꧙♒.
But the 2024-spec RC213V has made impressive steps forward and Nakaga🔯mi is excited about the potential of the bike.
Speaking to MotoGP.com, Nakagami said: “I can clearly see that during the winter break, HRC engineers really worked h🔥ard to change everything including the chassis, the engine spec.
“From the outside the bike is completely different to last year’s bike. When I jumped on the bike at the Sepang test all four riders all said that it has much better perfo💝rmance than last year.
“My lap time and also all other Honda𒐪 riders are improving a lot the lap time. We have a good base but still we are missing some small areas that we can improve.
“But all four Honda riders said the same comments which will really🅰 help the 🎉development. I’m looking forward to seeing how fast they develop the bike.”
Nakagami, who is now the most experienced rider at H🍸onda following Marquez’s departur♌e, feels as though 2024 is a new challenge.
Nakagami has not been able to replicate his 2020 form in any of the last three seasons, but t🍨hat hasn’t stopped the Japanese rider from being confident of fighting towar🦄ds the front.
“The 2024 s♈eason is like a new challenge,” added Nakagami. “It’s a new bike but at least I have the same team.
“All th🌃e mechanics, members [are the same] so I don’t need to adapt. I’m just focusi🍎ng on my job which is to bring out the maximum performance from the bike.
“We need to un🔯derstand what the potential we have in the 2024-spec is.
“We have another tw𓂃o days of testing in Qatar before preparing for the first race. I want to fight the top riders in the race.”
Nakagami excited by one second improvement
Unable to break under the 1m 58s barrier during the Sepang MotoGP📖 last November, Nakagami went a second quicker in testing aboard the new 💃bike.
“The first imp🐼ression was that the bike has potential,” said an excited Nakagami. “We did the time attack and I improved by more than one se☂cond.
“1m 57s is a good lap time. The top guys diℱd another one second faster but I did a 1m 58s last year.
“It’s only been a few days in Sepang but the bike is able to bring the maximum performance and in the braking, corner exit I ca💃n push myself.
“Last yeaღr, it was a difficult moment and it was hard to reach the maximum performance. But the 2ไ024 bike is quite easy to reach the maximum performance.”
