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First impressions often count, and the one offered by Honda's new prototype was certainly not a positive one for the riders. Joan Mir and Luca Marini had tried it in private testing in Barcelona, discarding it immediately. Instead, Stefan Bradl rode it in the race at Jerez, and then entrusted it in Monday's tests to Zarco and Nakagami. The two LCR team riders were also aligned in their comments to their colleagues from the factory team. "There is nothing positive," Johann described that bike.
Takaaki feels the same way: "I did two rides with that bike, so between 25 and 30 laps, and they were enough because, honestly, neither the performance nor the feeling on that bike changes much. It has more or less the same problems that we have on the regular bike," was his conclusion.
No one doubts the efforts HRC's engineers are making, but the paths they are taking seem to be leading nowhere.
"I'm a bit disappointed, everyone expected this prototype to have potential, but instead it doesn't change much," Nakagami continued. "The good thing is that we already had a new bike after Jerez, in the past it never happened, we had to wait for the Misano tests. In a couple of months Honda tried many different things and also gave us a new bike, so we have to keep pushing."
And to hope that the next prototype will be better.
