Honda officially unvileved its 2016 MotoGP bike and livery at Indonesia’s Sentul International Circuit on Sunday.
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa took the wraps off the new RC213V, with which Honda hopes to take the fight to last year’s dominant champions Yamaha.
Honda suffered a difficult opening pre-season test at Sepang, as it still seeks to combat the over-aggressive engine characteristics that plagued it during the early part of the 2015 season.
Both riders also admitted that they were struggling to adapt to the new for 2016 mandatory control electronics, with Marquez and Pedrosa lapping fifth and 11th fastest overall respectively.
“We go to Australia and I’m looking forward to continuing our work on the new engine and the new electronics,” said Marquez.
“We made a few steps in the right direction over the three days at Sepang but we need to make some more at Phillip Island.
“I’m confident the HRC [Honda Racing Corporation] engineers and my team will come up with more improvements as we get used to the new software.”
HRC executive vice preisdent Shuhei Nakamoto is confident that the team can still overcome these early difficulties to fight for title honours.
“Next week Marc and Dani will have three important days of testing in Phillip Island,” he said.
“We are working very hard to improve our knowledge of the new common software and Michelin tyres.
“We are also working on our new engine but I believe our engineers will be able to give Dani and Marc a good machine to fight for the Championship.”
The second of three pre-season tests will kick of at Phillip Island on February 17, running for three days.
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