Luca Marini expects Honda MotoGP podiums from 2026

After showing solid progression throughout 2025, Luca Marini thinks Honda can challenge for MotoGP podiums again from 2026 if it continues its current development trend.

Marini missed three races earlier in the year through injuries picked up while testing for Honda’s factory Suzuka 8 Hours team, but since coming back has finished in the top-10 on five occasions including Sprints.

The Italian scored his best Honda result in fifth at Balaton Park back in August, and was eighth last weekend (5–7 September) in Barcelona having fought for the top-five for much of the race before running out of rear grip at the end.

The progress from HRC has been encouraging for Marini, who joined the Honda HRC team in 2024, but he is not expecting to be taking home silverware this year, necessarily.

“Next year, I would say,” Luca Marini said in the pre-event press conference at the San Marino Grand prix when asked when he thinks he and Honda can fight for podium positions in MotoGP.

“If we keep working very well, like this, like we did since the beginning of last season and everything went in the correct direction, and other manufacturers do not improve so much, we can fight next year I think for the podium.”

Considering where Honda was when he joined the project at the 2023 Valencia test, there is satisfaction for Marini in seeing the progress being made.

“It’s super-satisfying,” he said.

“At the beginning it was tough – not the first test, I would say, because the bike is super-friendly, at the beginning it was easy to go fast.
“But then you reach like a wall that is difficult to go through and when you miss that last 10 per cent of performance it’s always critical.

“We started from the bottom, to be [all four Hondas in the last four positions] in many occasions in the last year, but now we are all four riders, I would say – but also Aleix [Espargaro] and Taka [Takaaki Nakagami] when they do the wildcards – much more competitive.

“But, still, it’s far away from the target that we have.”

The Italian added that the progress Honda has made since the beginning of 2024 has been thanks to making small improvements all over the bike, rather than large gains in one area.

“I think the Japanese engineers are doing a great job, they are pushing so much, so hard, and listening in a very precise way to my feedback, to our feedback, and everything is improving – just a little bit, but in all the details, in every part of the bike we made a step forward,” he said.

“This is the most important thing. I think our performance has increased a lot since the beginning of the season and it’s satisfying when these things happen, all the crew is doing a great effort and we showed this also on paper and this is important for us.”

“We can be strong and fast” at Misano

As for many of the Italian riders, for Marini Misano is the race that is closest to home. After positive results in Balaton and Barcelona, he thinks he can be “strong and fast” at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli as well.

“It’s true that also here we can be strong and fast,” he said when asked if a top-six could be possible at Misano.

“We keep improving, also in the Monday test after Barcelona we did something positive, so looking forward to this track.

“Here usually we have a very good grip, so it can be helpful for us.

“But always it will be super-important to stay in the top-10 in Practice and make a good qualifying and start in the front because here it’s always difficult to overtake.

“But if we can be in the front after the first two or three laps, why not? We can keep fighting for that kind of position [top-six].”