Repsol Honda team principal Livio Suppo has admitted HRC need to bring a less aggressive engine to the MotoGP fight in 2016 and said the plan was to give satellite riders like Cal Crutchlow and Tito Rabat essentially the same bikes as Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa.

Suppo admitted that the factory men, and Crutchlow, complained that last year’s RC213V motor was far from easy to ride so they have brought two different specs to the Sepang test for evaluation.

“Here Dani and Marc will use the engines they had at Valencia and Jerez and also an evolution. We need to try and have a more easy-to-ride engine. Last year it was very fast, very strong, but both riders and also Cal complained it was not so easy to ride so the target this year is to give something more easy to understand,” said Suppo, speaking at Sepang.

“Last year, Marc and Dani were on different chassis because the style of Marc needs something different. This year, there is no difference between the chassis but we are more focused on the engine. The new electronics software is a big challenge, let’s say, so over the winter we have been working hard. The new unified software is not the Open class software so it is another beginning again.
The target is to provide to all Honda riders the same bike, basically.”