Luca Marini is impressed with the “remarkable strides” Honda has made in its development over the past year in MotoGP.
The Italian rider and the Japanese marque finished dead last in both championships during the 2024 season, enduring their worst-ever campaign in the premier class.
In 2025, Honda has taken steps forward, highlighted by Johann Zarco’s win at Le Mans and Marini finishing every race he competed in, despite missing three rounds due to injury.
Aside from rookie Somkiat Chantra, who has scored just one point, Zarco, Marini, and Joan Mir have placed Honda in the battle for ‘best of the rest’ behind Ducati.
Marini is choosing not to get complacent, stating to GPOne: “We have to keep our heads down and work because, in my opinion, there is still so much to sort out.
“In any case, it’s part of the process, we are making remarkable strides, especially considering where we started from.
“We have made a lot of changes since i arrived and that has allowed us to have decent speed here, in Austria and at two or three other tracks, especially where there is grip.
“Whereas now in Barcelona it’s going to be a big question mark because it’s a track where there is little grip and the engine matters so much and right now, those are our two weak points.
“We’ll see how we perform there.”
The 28-year-old produced his season-best result at the inaugural Hungarian round at Balaton Park, finishing fourth in Saturday’s Sprint and fifth in the Grand Prix.
He tussled in a battle with Franco Morbidelli and Jorge Martin, defeating only the former as Martin secured a career-best fourth place for Aprilia.
“Very good race, I had fun,” Marini told the media post-race.
“I got off to a really good start, in the first two corners, I juggled around pretty well, and then everything went pretty much according to plan.
“We were all there one in a row, half a second apart. Honestly, it already seemed to me that both me and Jorge [Martin] were a little bit faster than Franco [Morbidelli], but it’s really hard to overtake so we waited for the tyres to drop a little bit.
“It went really well, I’m happy with all the work we did all over the weekend and how we’re improving.”
Discussion about this post