Honda has introduced a new engine configuration for this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, but its MotoGP riders have warned that it won’t bring an immediate step in performance.
The Japanese manufacturer has been hard at work to dig itself out of its lowest-ever phase in MotoGP, with a number of updates planned in the coming races in Europe.
The first significant upgrade is a new engine specification that LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami and HRC duo Luca Marini and Joan Mir are trialling at Spielberg, possibly with some variations between them.
Johann Zarco, who has previously gone for a different approach with a motor that is more powerful but harder to ride, will remain on the same bike that he raced with at Silverstone to gather more data.
From the outside, the new package is a welcome boost for HRC as it has been much slower in bringing in new components than Yamaha, another manufacturer that has been given extensive freedom to develop the bike in the middle of the season as part of MotoGP’s new concession system.
But Marini doesn’t think there is much speed to gain from the improved engine, even as he praised HRC for bringing in updates to the track for the second half of the campaign.
“'New engine' is a big, big word, I will say [it is] a little upgrade,” he said.
“Because in terms of performance we saw after the Silverstone race, Taka's performance [with a different spec] looks a little bit better but still not the same as the other engines [and] is a little bit more difficult to ride.
“We are getting closer to the other engine, but still not enough.
“But I will say good job that they made this upgrade. It's part of the process. It is important to keep pushing, keep working, even small upgrades are something good. I'm just happy for this.
“We will see but it will not change our performance on track.”
Marini’s team-mate Mir was more optimistic about the ultimate potential of the upgraded engine, but also suggested that it wouldn't immediately transform Honda’s fortunes in MotoGP.
“This weekend we have a different engine configuration, this is something great,” he said. “It's a quite neat, fresh configuration.
"It will not be a configuration that you put on track and straight away it is fast.
“So it's something that will [require] some time to understand, some time to put the electronics side correctly, maybe the set-up.
“It will be a bit of work behind but it’s nice to have some new big things to try to understand if it's the [right] direction or not, if it's better, with more top speed or not, we have to see.”
Honda’s stable of four riders have opted for different engine configurations in the past, with there being some disagreement over what the best way forward is for the marque.
Mir hopes that the engine upgrade a number of Honda riders will be running on their RC213Vs this weekend will give a definitive answer as to what direction to take going forward.
“It's not an engine that I didn't try before, it’s a configuration I didn't try before. The engine is not new, it's the configuration,” he clarified.
“It makes sense after all the struggle we have been through, especially at the beginning of the season.
“We realised the direction in that area was not the right one and we came back so it's a little bit the direction we wanted to do when we came back. Those two steps that we want to do.
“We don't expect two steps. it's just to understand if it's the direction we have to continue, that we will use.”
Additional reporting by Lorenza D'Adderio and Gerald Dirnbeck
