Britain's Cal Crutchlow got his hands on the 2019 Honda RC213V MotoGP missile for the first time at Sepang today and believes it is already an improvement on last year's title-winning bike.
Crutchlow, who hasn't ridden since the Phillip Island crash that marmalised his ankle, put in his first laps today on the 2018-spec bike before switching to the 2019 version - which has a revised airbox arrangement - in the afternoon.
"The plan was to ride the 2018 bike for familiarisation because, in all honesty, for the first couple of runs, I wasn't warming the tyres so it was pointless for me to put mileage on the 2019 bike straightaway," said Crutchlow, speaking at the track.
"We rode it this afternoon and I found that HRC have done a good job with that bike. We need to adjust the setting to understand it more as it is different to what I have been used to but we are pleased with what they have done.
"We are looking at improving on the weaker areas from last year and I think they have done some of that. As I said, we need to adjust the setting, there are a lot of electronics we have to adjust, also the chassis, so we can start to work on that over the next two days."
