Modest 15th at the end of the MotoGP test in Sepang, Luca marini put it all together and leads the Honda troops on the first day of testing in Buriram.
Just days after completing the Malaysian test, the Honda HRC Castrol team returned to work in Thailand for the final two days of on-track action before the start of the 2025 MotoGP World Championship. The cool morning air quickly gave way to the intense Thai heat, a taste of what’s to come when MotoGP returns to the same circuit in just under two weeks’ time for the first race.
Luca marini got into the rhythm straight away on his Honda RC213V for the final test of the year, finishing 4th in 1'29.928 at the end of the morning, just 0,279s behind the fastest, Alex Marquez, demonstrating the team's constant improvements in performance.
In the afternoon, in 1'30.245 the Honda rider was unable to improve and finished 6th in the combined classification, albeit 0,744s behind the day's leader, Marc Marquez, but close to the 1'30.137 posted in qualifying last year and just ahead Johann zarco, usually the fastest of the Honda riders. What about tomorrow?
The second day of these tests will be devoted to a time trial attack in the morning followed by a race simulation in the afternoon.
Luca marini : " I think that One of my strengths is finding speed quite quickly., so we started well today and we spent the rest of the day fine-tuning the set-up. We were able to go through more or less all the parts that we had to evaluate in Sepang, so now we are focusing on getting the maximum potential out of the bike. I think there was a little improvement compared to Sepang today. We were able to make some good changes to the bike, and it felt a little bit better. There is still a long way to go to get to the point we want to get to, to close the gap to the leader, but I think we are doing a good job. We have to keep working like this.
It is certain that we have been able to improve our level since the last time we came here a few months ago and we must continue in this way. Of course, everything can change during a race weekend, but for now we still have one day to test tomorrow. Tomorrow will be another important day to see our potential when everyone will engage in a time attack and, of course, a race simulation.. It will be a timed attack in the morning and then a race simulation at the right time, because here it is always very hot at 14:00 pm. So we have to pay attention to that, try to understand the temperature of the tires, how to manage that during the race, it is always very important. I think thatAfter today, the settings are pretty clear. We made the right choices, today we focused on that, especially on the settings, and not on the development of the bike, because we spent a lot of time on it in Sepang. So today we focused on performance and we tried to exploit all the potential of the bike, with the package we have now. For tomorrow we will make some changes, but very, very few things.
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Results of the first day of MotoGP testing in Buriram, Thailand:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
