Honda ought to be again among the many victory contenders within the 2026 MotoGP season, in line with the RC213V’s Technical Director: Romano Albesiano.
The Italian engineer joined Honda from Aprilia, together with Antonio Jimenez and Aleix Espargaro, over the winter between the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Early on, progress underneath Albesiano’s stewardship has been obvious from Honda, which has gained a race (albeit within the moist) at Le Mans and been on the rostrum (within the dry) at Silverstone with Johann Zarco within the opening eight rounds of the season.
It’s the form of progress that would encourage hope for these concerned within the mission and, certainly, that appears to be the case for Albesiano.
“Battle for a championship subsequent yr? Truthfully, I don’t know,” Albesiano instructed MotoGP.com.
“However combating for successful races, I’d count on this.
“We don’t need concessions, hopefully we lose concessions on the finish of this season. We’d be comfortable to lose them.”
The Italian additionally expects Honda to make extra progress within the second half of the 2025 season with a number of updates deliberate.
“We now have a fairly dense listing of recent issues to deliver for the tip of the season,” he stated.
“You will note some fast evolution of the bike. We can have [something on the] chassis aspect, engine. Many developments are ongoing.”
“I used to be stunned that many of the traits have been optimistic”
Albesiano additionally spoke of his earliest days with Honda in the long run of final yr, suggesting that part of the method of him becoming a member of the Japanese manufacturing facility has been the conjunction of European and Japanese working strategies.
“When the decision from HRC got here I used to be super-excited,” he stated.
“Honda is the most important producer of bikes on the planet.
“The way in which folks method their job is completely different, it’s one other tradition.
“For certain, I’m bringing my method, let’s say ‘European method’, to growth and to testing.
“I really feel that there’s no revolution on this. You need to have a ardour and be inventive – this has at all times been a attribute of Honda.”
Additional, he was stunned by the bike, which he anticipated to be worse. As an alternative, he discovered that there have been many optimistic factors in regards to the RC213V that completed solely 4 occasions (together with Sprints) within the top-10 in 2024.
“Truthfully, trying on the outcomes from final yr, I used to be anticipating that the bike was not good,” Albesiano stated.
“However, once I interviewed the riders for the primary time, I used to be stunned that many of the traits of the bike have been optimistic, however some particular factors have been actually detrimental.
“It is a situation that means that you can assault these particular factors and enhance the state of affairs fairly shortly.
“From final yr to this yr, the most effective enchancment might be the torque supply, which is extra controllable by the rider. Some growth within the electronics technique like traction management.
“Then, we in all probability modified the method to the race weekend, sharing info as a lot as attainable.
“For certain, we will enhance one thing that helps us to extend just a little bit the highest velocity, to assist the rider to overhaul and don’t be overtaken.
“We began understanding how the elements are affecting the vibration.
“Braking might be a very powerful space in trendy MotoGP – that is an space the place we will nonetheless enhance.”
Lastly, Albesiano spoke briefly about reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Martin, who joined Aprilia Racing as Albesiano departed final winter, and who has signalled his intentions to go away the Noale model on the finish of the primary yr of his two-year contract.
Maybe understandably, it’s a sophisticated topic for Albesiano, who had taken over command of Aprilia’s racing programmes since Gigi Dall’Igna joined Ducati on the finish of 2013.
“For certain, if Martin comes, for Honda it will likely be an excellent factor,” Albesiano stated.
“It could be a nasty factor for Aprilia. I’m actually contemporary from that firm, so I would really like to not touch upon this level.”
