This year, Honda has been trailing in several MotoGP indicators, including top speeds, though this metric doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall performance of a bike.
Johann Zarco of LCR Honda explained in a press conference that despite Honda’s lower top speeds, the RC213V’s limitations stem from its aerodynamics:
– The top speed, you don’t really look at it. It’s coming when it’s coming, and the difference in top speed is not what is making the biggest difference on the lap time. I think we are some steps back with the aerodynamics and I think for this reason we struggle on the fast corners. But then even on the straight, we maybe slow down a bit, because I don’t think it’s a real problem of the engine.
In the past, Zarco achieved significantly higher top speeds on a Ducati until 2023, but he emphasized that comparing the two isn’t feasible: ‘I cannot compare it with previous years; I was on a Ducati, where I could be a bit faster. It’s maybe the way to getting out of the corners, or the aero because we were all the same Ducatis in the past. […]. Sometimes the top speed on some tracks is when you are braking, so many times the guy who gets the top speed is the one that is braking later’.