Honda MotoGP boss “expects” race victories in 2026

Honda should be back among the victory contenders in the 2026 MotoGP season, according to the RC213V’s Technical Director: Romano Albesiano.

The Italian engineer joined Honda from Aprilia, along with Antonio Jimenez and Aleix Espargaro, over the winter between the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Early on, progress under Albesiano’s stewardship has been apparent from Honda, which has won a race (albeit in the wet) at Le Mans and been on the podium (in the dry) at Silverstone with Johann Zarco in the opening eight rounds of the season.

It’s the kind of progress that could inspire hope for those involved in the project and, indeed, that seems to be the case for Albesiano.

“Fight for a championship next year? Honestly, I don’t know,” Albesiano told MotoGP.com.

“But fighting for winning races, I would expect this.

“We don’t want concessions, hopefully we lose concessions at the end of this season. We’d be happy to lose them.”

The Italian also expects Honda to make more progress in the second half of the 2025 season with several updates planned.

“We have a quite dense list of new things to bring for the end of the season,” he said.

“You will see some quick evolution of the bike. We will have [something on the] chassis side, engine. Many developments are ongoing.”

“I was surprised that most of the characteristics were positive”

Albesiano also spoke of his earliest days with Honda in the end of last year, suggesting that  a part of the process of him joining the Japanese factory has been the conjunction of European and Japanese working methods.

“When the call from HRC came I was super-excited,” he said.

“Honda is the biggest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world.

“The way people approach their job is different, it’s another culture.

“For sure, I’m bringing my approach, let’s say ‘European approach’, to development and to testing.

“I feel that there’s no revolution in this. You have to have a passion and be creative – this has always been a characteristic of Honda.”

Further, he was surprised by the bike, which he expected to be worse. Instead, he found that there were many positive points about the RC213V that finished only four times (including Sprints) in the top-10 in 2024.

“Honestly, looking at the results from last year, I was expecting that the bike was not good,” Albesiano said.

“But, when I interviewed the riders for the first time, I was surprised that most of the characteristics of the bike were positive, but some specific points were really negative.

“This is a condition that allows you to attack those specific points and improve the situation quite quickly.

“From last year to this year, the best improvement is probably the torque delivery, which is more controllable by the rider. Some development in the electronics strategy like traction control.

“Then, we probably changed the approach to the race weekend, sharing information as much as possible.

“For sure, we can improve something that helps us to increase a little bit the top speed, to help the rider to overtake and don’t be overtaken.

“We started understanding how the components are affecting the vibration.

“Braking is probably the most important area in modern MotoGP – this is an area where we can still improve.”

Finally, Albesiano spoke briefly about reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Martin, who joined Aprilia Racing as Albesiano departed last winter, and who has signalled his intentions to leave the Noale brand at the end of the first year of his two-year contract.

Perhaps understandably, it is a complicated subject for Albesiano, who had taken over command of Aprilia’s racing programmes since Gigi Dall’Igna joined Ducati at the end of 2013.

“For sure, if Martin comes, for Honda it will be a very good thing,” Albesiano said.

“It would be a bad thing for Aprilia. I’m really fresh from that company, so I would like not to comment on this point.”