Honda has revealed that that its new 800cc
MotoGP machine, which made its first public appearance during testing at Motegi on Monday, has a V4 engine.
The machine, to be raced in the 2007 MotoGP World Championship, has been the subject of much speculation - with Honda keeping its engine design secret right until Monday's test.
Honda currently uses an adventurous V5 engine configuration for its 990cc RC211V, but will now join its rivals in switching to four-cylinders for 2007. Ducati and Suzuki already use a V4, whilst Yamaha and Kawasaki favour an inline-4 layout. Honda's MotoGP rivals are all set to use scaled down versions of their existing 990cc engines for the first year of the new 800cc rules.
The new bike was given to factory Repsol Honda rider
Dani Pedrosa for the first time on Monday, while championship leading team-mate
Nicky Hayden concentrated on improving his 990cc machine for the upcoming title showdown with
Valentino Rossi. Honda test riders Tady Okada and Gaku Kamada were also present.
By the end of 30 laps, Pedrosa had recorded an impressive time of 1min 48.210secs - just 0.4secs slower than his fastest 990cc lap in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix and 0.37secs faster than Rossi's Monday best on the new Yamaha 800. However, Pedrosa was 0.8secs slower than the
Bridgestone shod Ducati 800, in the hands of Sete Gibernau.
