Johann Zarco satisfied with a "well-designed" 2026 Honda

This Valencia test coincided with Honda's move to Tier C of the concessions, which will no longer allow the team to use its regular riders for various test sessions. It was therefore important for Johann Zarco, as well as for factory riders Luca Marini and Joan Mir, and rookie Diogo Moreira, to get as much experience as possible with the 2026 version of the RC213V in order to guide its development.

After a first "real" day of testing, following a contact session in Barcelona, ​​Johann Zarco was reasonably satisfied with the machine he had at his disposal on Tuesday. On one of the bikes used by Aleix Espargaró during his end-of-season wildcards, the Cannes native was able to begin the work.

“It has a slightly different balance compared to the current one, and I think there’s a way to fine-tune it to improve our performance. I feel like it’s a good bike from the start. The runs Aleix Espargaró was able to do on it have provided a lot of data. For my part, I couldn’t go faster on Tuesday because we needed to do a lot of runs to try things out, and changes that take a long time to make to the bike, so that creates a lot of waiting in the garage. We’ve made progress, we’ve done the work so that the engineers can analyze everything we’ve done in the coming weeks.”

Like many of his colleagues, the French Grand Prix winner always wants more grip, and it seems his wish might be granted with this new version of the Honda. Now all that remains is to adapt the rider to extract the maximum potential the machine has to offer…

"This bike generates more grip; we're always complaining about not having any! It generates grip in certain places, and it's up to me to understand how to adapt my riding or the settings to use that grip. Honda's DNA remains the same; we're progressing, but without a revolution."

Now, the battle plan will be drawn up in the engineers' offices before the Sepang tests at the end of January/beginning of February. The French rider expects not to have a significantly revised bike by then, which will allow him to continue the discovery process while preparing for a potentially unpredictable 2026 season.

“Some things are expected between now and February, but overall this is the bike I’ll have, and that everyone will have at Sepang. In my opinion, the changes that will happen between now and then will be related to the aerodynamics.”

Interview by Luca Bartolomeo, in Valencia (Spain).

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