The 2024 Honda RC213V may look radically different but, according to 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Takaaki Nakagami, the key weaknesses remain the same.

The good news is that the Japanese believes clear progress has been made in several other areas, namely qualifying laps and en🍌gine performance.

Following the departure of Marc ♉Marquez, Nakagami, at LCR since 2018, is the most e🐬xperienced RCV rider in Honda’s current line-up.

The 32-year-old was 13th fastest at the Sepang test, one-second behind Ducati’s double wo🍸rld champion Francesco Bagnaia and 0.4s from the top Honda♒ of Joan Mir (Repsol).

“We made quite a big step today,” Nakagami said of his time attack. “Our target is to improve the qualifying lap and definitely yes, it was the firstꦆ time I was able to go into the ‘57s so I’m quite happy. But the top time is one second faster!

“Definitely, the strong point [of the new bike] is the engine performance. Top speed and the torque d♛elivery is much smoother. It's quite easy to understand w🎶hat's happening on the bike and this is much better than last year's bike.

“The whole package I think is improཧvi♑ng. Aero also. But still, honestly speaking, the rear grip is pretty much similar. I mean at the end all four riders complain a lot about the rear grip. The spinning.

“This is the worst point because we cannot kill the spin and we cannot drop the spin, so this keeps spinning, spinning, spinning. That's why after 10 laps ou𒁃r tyre has a big drop. Especially turn 3 and the last two corners we have a crazy amount of spin.

“S♔o we need to not lose the eng📖ine performance, maybe even go higher, but try to create more rear grip.

“Because if we have a lot of grip, the bike [works] pretty well. But when the tyres drop, it's so difficult to control. Also Luca [Marini] said that it's quite difficult to manage when the ♋tyre drops. So this is the key point for the race.

“So hopefully next test in Qa🥀tar I think we can get some small items to improve the bike balance and hopefully we can find a good pace.

“Maybe t🦋he qualifying lap now is OK. Still we can improve. But maybe for the next test our focus point is more on t﷽he long run.”

Nakꦆagami has a new team-🍸mate this season in Johann Zarco who, like Marini (Repsol), is arriving at Honda after several seasons at Ducati.

“It's really important, the comments from Zarco and Marini, because they came from the best bike, Ducati,” Nakagami said. “So yes, 'what is the big difference between Ducati and Honda?' We had a bi𝓰g meeting and they were 🌼pointing out, ‘Ducati does this, but the Honda does this’.

“So the Honda engineers are trying to understand to get the information from these two riders to try different concepts or different ideas for the future. But it's really important - also for myself it'🤡s really interesting, what i😼s the difference between these bikes.

“But in some are♌as they are happy - about the engine p⛄erformance for example. But yes about the rear grip and also stability, we are still missing.

“As I said, the one lap maybe we can play a little bit, but for a long run we are quite far. So we need to focus more on that a൩t th💃e Qatar test. “

Zarco, a race winner in ꦑhis final Pramac season and 16th fastest at the Sepang test, agreed:

“Now the bike can be quite good for a time attack. Maybe the weak point iಞs when we have to do many laps in a row, the r𓄧ear tyre is really struggling a lot. And this can create problems in the race.

“But the capacity of the bike to do a quick lap time with a new tyre is somethin🌸g that Honda didn’t have before. So that’s a big point they fix꧙ed, and now we will see how to fix the next point.

“🦩Clearly, another track in Qatar, another layout, it will be inte🌌resting to see how the bike behaves.”

Th♊e Qatar test takes place next Monday and Tuesday.