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[Exclusive] Spy Attitude in Misano during the 2017 Honda engine tests: did Tokyo copy Borgo Panigale?

by | September 14, 2016

Following the Grand Prix at Misano, Honda, which had not participated in the tests in Austria, rented the circuit for two days of private testing.

A thunderstorm occurred shortly before dawn on Monday, so the track was not completely dry in the morning and rental cars spun on it to speed up the drying.
However, this compromised part of the morning and, that day, only Tito Rabat raced, with a small fall.


Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, on the other hand, drove extensively on Tuesday, sometimes together, in order to calibrate a prototype version of the 2017 engine.

The official press release is rather laconic: “Taking advantage of the ideal conditions of the day, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa got a taste of the engine developments for the next season, and also continued to work on the settings of their RC213Vs in preparation for the crucial phase of end of season.”

Transparent press release, completely closed circuit, the story seems to end there.

In fact, not entirely, since we were still near the Autodromo, and if we were only able to take a few photos of no real interest through a hole in the protections, we of course heard (and recorded) this famous engine, used in turn by Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa: Far from the shrill howl that usually tears the ears, the noise emitted by the propeller and its exhausts appears much more serious, a bit like the Ducati.

We will return to the subject in detail in a technical article, but it seems entirely possible to us that Honda has revised its engine timing, and abandoned the Screamer of the classic 4° V90 in favor of offset crankpins, like (more than likely) Ducati, resulting in a Big Bang.

In the meantime, Marc Marquez released a video… showing him with a 2016 engine, of course!

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