MotoGP: Takaaki Nakagami claims the 2020 Honda has ‘no negatives’
During this weeks test at Misano, Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami got to test the 2020 Honda after riding the 2019 bike this season.
Takaaki Nakagami has come as a surprise to many in 2020, impressing with his form, currently only 23 points behind title leader Andrea Dovizioso after 7 races on a 2019 Honda RC213V.
To the shock of many, Nakagami is also the leading Honda rider in the standings with Marc Marquez absent from this season, he has scored Honda’s highest place finish of fourth place with Honda yet to score a single podium.
During testing, Nakagami was allowed to test the 2020 Honda of Stefan Bradl, sadly crashing said bike, but had good feelings and only positives to say about the bike, “The new bike feels so good. Unfortunately, I had a crash with the new bike. We had planned to make a long run but after ten laps I had a big impact in turn one, the big bump, and lost the front end. It was an easy crash. Sorry to HRC but the bike was good. I felt comfortable and the lap time even on a long run was like a ’32 low every lap. So it was really positive and I don’t feel any negative.”
Sadly though, Nakagami confirmed he is not able to change to the 2020 bike for the rest of the season due to MotoGP rules. However, had good feelings on the bike which has spent its life at the back of the field all season, Honda were clearly interested in what Nakagami had to say about the bike with Nakagami confirming he had around 10 HRC engineers asking him questions and anticipating his feelings. His feedback as the top Honda rider will have been invaluable to HRC and their mission to drag the 2020 bike out of the dumps and back onto the podium.
Featured image – www.motogp.com
