Takaaki Nakagami: 2024 Honda ‘completely different, easy to reach max performance’
Takaaki Nakagami says the 2024 Honda MotoGP bike is allowing him to reach maximum performance in an easier fashion than last se💫ason.
2023 was one of Honda’s worst years in the MotoGP era, and after losing 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Marc Marquez to Ducati, hope for a b⛎ig turnaround looked bleak.
But the 2024-spec RC213V has made impressive steps forward and Nakagami is excited about the pote🏅ntial of the bike.
Speaking to MotoG🗹P.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 di🌞fferent to last year’s bike. When 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 riders are improving a lot the lap t𒀰ime. We have a good base but still we are missing some small areas that we can improve.
“But all four Ho🏅nda riders said the same comments which will really help the development. I’m looking forward to seeing how fast they develop the bike.”
Nakagami, w🎐ho is now the most experienced rider at Honda follo🧸wing 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🦹 fightꦬing towards the front.
“The 2🦂024 season is like a new challenge,” added♚ Nakagami. “It’s a new bike but at least I have the same team.
“Aℱll the mechanics, members [are the same] so I don’t need to 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 the 2024-spec is.
“We have anotꦐher two 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 ab𒊎oard the new bike.
“The first impression was that the bike has potential,” said an 𝐆excited Nakagami. “We did the time attack and I i🦂mproved by more than one second.
“1m 🌳57s is a good lap time. The top guys did 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 💯myself.
“Last year, it was a difficult moment and it was hard to reach tওhe maximum performance. But the 2024 bike is quite easy to reach the maximum performance.”
