Takaaki Nakagami: 2024 Honda ‘completely different, easy to reach max performance’
Takaaki Nakagami say♒s the 2024 Honda MotoGP bike is allowing him to reach maximum performance in an easier fashio𒅌n than last season.
2023 was one of Honda’s worst years in the MotoGP era, and after losing 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Marc Marquez♚ to Ducati, hope꧑ for a big turnaround looked bleak.
But the 2024-spec RC2𒐪13V h꧙as made impressive steps forward and Nakagami is excited about the potential of the bike.
Speaking to MotoGP.com, Nakagami said: “I can clearly see that during the winter break, HRC engineers really worked hard to change everything 🔯including the chassis, the engine spec.
“From the outside the bike is completely diff𒊎erent to last year’s bike. Wꦕhen I jumped on the bike at the Sepang test all four riders all said that it has much better performance than last year.
“My lap time and also all other Honda r🌠iders are improving a lot the lap time. We have a good base but still we are missing some small areas that we can improve.
“But all four Honda riders said the same comments which will really help the development. I’m looking forward to seeing how fast they develop th🍒e bike.”
Nakagami, wh💞o is now the most experienced rider at Honda following Marquez’s departure, feels as though 2024 is a new challenge.
Nakagami has not been able to replicate his 2020 form in any of the last three seasons, but that hasn’t stopped the Japanese rider from being confident of fighting towards 🐼the front.
“The 2024 season is like a new challenge,” added Na🗹kagami. “It’s a new bike but at least I have the same teꦆam.
“All the mechanics, members [are the same]ꦕ so I don’t need ꦅto adapt. I’m just focusing on my job which is to bring out the maximum performance from the bike.
“We need to understand what the potential we have in thꦺe 2024-spec ꦅis.
“We have another tw♎o days of testing in Qatar before preparing for the first race. I want to fight the top riders in the race.”
Nakagami excited by one second improvement
Unable to break🔯 under the 1m 58s barrier during the Sepang MotoGP ⛦last November, Nakagami went a second quicker in testing aboard the new bike.
“The first impression was that the bike has potential,” said an excited Nakagami. “We did the time attack and I improved 🅰by more than one second.
“1m 57s is a good lap time. The top guys di🤡d another one second faster but I did a 1m 58s last year.
“It’s only been a few days in Sepang but the bike is able to bring the maximum performance and in 🥃the braking, corner exit I can push myseꦿlf.
“Last year, it was a difficult moওment and it was hard to reach the maximum per♋formance. But the 2024 bike is quite easy to reach the maximum performance.”
