MotoGP 2015: Casey Stoner Tests Next Year’s Honda RC213V at Motegi

Former Repsol Honda rider and MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner tests the prototype Honda RC213V over two days at Motegi.

Former Repsol Honda rider and MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner took to the 4.801km Twin Ring circuit yesterday morning at the same track where current factory rider Marc Marquez recently clinched the 2014 World Championship.

The intense testing program was performed over a full two days. According to Repsol Honda’s Team Principal Livio Suppo, “As planned Casey is riding the 2015 RC213V. As we said earlier in the year the test has been organized with him after we lost some test time last year due to bad weather. So we’ve put together this two-day test, but for now there is no other test program planned. We prefer to take a day-by-day approach.”

The 2015/'16 testing concluded after Stoner was able to spend time testing the 2015 Honda RC213V machine on the current specification Bridgestone tires, evaluating various items including engine development and the different setups of Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa. He also spent time on the Michelin tires, which will replace Bridgestone as the spec tire supplier from 2016.

Stoner commented: “It took some time to get used to riding the bike again after a year off it! But everything felt good, I got back into the swing of things pretty quickly and we just got on with the testing program HRC had planned.

“Day one went pretty well, testing both Marc and Dani’s setups on the 2015 prototype machines and analyzing these side by side we found some interesting differences and useful data. We also did some engine development and some other new items Honda brought for this test. Then today we spent some time on the Michelin tires for 2016. All in all it was very positive two-day test and we completed a lot of laps.”