When Takaaki Nakagami, Honda rider seconded to LCR Honda IDEMITSU, finishes at the bottom of the timesheet of the MotoGP test in Portimão apart from the rookie Augusto Fernandez, this perfectly illustrates the difficulties currently encountered by the manufacturer with the golden wing.
Fair play, and undoubtedly rightly given the three other RC213Vs grouped from 13th to 15th place, the Japanese blames himself for the time deficit of half a second which separates him from his distinguished teammates, to which must be added that provided by the motorcycle, currently quantified at 0,8 seconds.
In total, it is therefore 1,3 seconds slower compared to the leader Francis Bagnaia that the Chiba native finished these last off-season MotoGP tests at the Autódromo do Algarve, having concluded the Valencia test day in 19th position and the three days at Sepang 21st.
A rather gloomy assessment despite which the LCR team notes some positive elements to highlight, Takaaki Nakagami having noticed a significant improvement during the second and final day of testing. Since Saturday morning, the 31-year-old rider had struggled to find his sensations on the bike and admitted that he still needed to be more comfortable on the handlebars of a motorcycle than Marc Márquez he himself tries to make progress without getting discouraged: “ It’s true that you have to take a step forward and continue to improve. But you can't start a season with a negative mentality: You have to start with a positive mentality and trying to find the best. »
And indeed, after testing some development pieces brought by the HRC, especially on the second day, number 30 now believes that there is potential and room for improvement in certain areas that would help the pilot and the team. team to take a step forward in two weeks for the Grand Prix.
We obviously wish him…
Takaaki Nakagami : " The three days in Sepang and the two days here were not easy, but today, in terms of lap times, everything is very close, the gap has closed and we have taken a step forward. The feeling with the bike is better, but the bike and I still need to improve. We could take another step forward during the race weekend, so let's keep working. The team did a good job, as always. »
Final ranking of the second day of MotoGP testing in Portimão:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
