Pedrosa and Marquez test 2016 bike

Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez both had the chance to test a 2016 chassis at Misano today with both offering encouraging reports on the bike. The chassis continues to use the current engine with Honda keen to work in an iterative development at the moment and not inundate the riders with changes.

It’s very early in development to read anything into the bike with Marquez simply saying that, “I tried the 2016 prototype finding something good, but we will test it again tomorrow with next year’s tyres to give the HRC engineers more data to work with.”

Having data on the Michelin’s on the new bike will be a key step for the team and show how earnestly they are working to ensure that this year’s form is seen as little more than a blip.

Apart from the work on next year’s bike Marquez felt that progress has been made as the team search for an improved setup.

“I’m happy with these past two days, we have done a great job on the setup and now I feel more comfortable,” said the Spaniard. “Especially this morning when the temperature was a little bit lower we were able to find something that has improved my feeling and now we will have to see if this will work also in the coming circuits.” 

In Germany Pedrosa looked to be back on form and capable of fighting for wins once again but being forced to test for three days following a Grand Prix will place plenty of strain on him physically. As a result it was hugely encouraging to hear him say that it was a productive test and give no indication that he was suffering physically.

“It’s been two hard but productive days of testing,” said Pedrosa. “We are happy as we have been able to work a lot on the current bike to find a setup that can be a good base for the coming GPs. It has been a very hard job as the temperature was really hot but I am happy. I also did a couple of exits with the prototype of the 2016 bike. It was important to give to the engineers some feedback about the direction we are heading. Tomorrow we will test it again with 2016 tyres as this bike will have to work on them!”

Marquez  completed 86 laps today with Pedrosa circulating the Italian circuit 71 times.