Honda “in line” with pre-season MotoGP development plan

Honda MotoGP team boss Alberto Puig says the Japanese brand is “in line” with the development plan it set out pre-season and is “confident in the progress”.

After several seasons of immense struggle, Honda has made significant progress with its RC213V during the 2025 campaign.

In recent rounds since the summer break, Honda has made another step forward with the introduction of a new chassis at the Austrian Grand Prix.

That helped Luca Marini to his best weekend ever on the bike in Hungary with a brace of top fives, while the Italian has remained a top 10 finisher since.

Reflecting on Honda’s recent form, Alberto Puig told the official MotoGP website: “The last weeks have been really positive for us in terms of development.

“I think we are going in line with the plan we had at the beginning of the year because at the beginning of the year in Sepang we already informed you guys that probably after the summer break we would bring updates.

“And this is happening. We are trying things that are working and we are quite confident in the progress that we are making.

“So, pretty pleased about how things are going.”

Monday’s Misano test saw Honda continue this work, while also trialling things for the 2026 season.

For Puig, this marked the first time in years that Honda could clearly understand the updates it brought.

“We are testing a lot of things,” he added.

“I would lie to you if I said one thing: many, many things we are trying, concept parts and specific parts for the bike.

“But overall, making steps forward. In the past sometimes we had many tests trying many things but we could not really identify if it was good or not. But now we are getting to the point where we are really progressing.

“I am always trying to be realistic, but at this moment I think we have to be happy because of the things done so far.”