Repsol Honda Team undertake first test of 2016 next week in Malaysia – the beginning of thousands of kilometres and hours on the Honda RC213V this year.

After two months without riding their bikes, next Monday, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa will resume the 2016 preseason in Sepang, Malaysia. It will be the first test of a year in which the greatest challenge will be development of this current machine, adapting to changes made to the regulations.

In order to get the Honda RC213V up to speed, hours of testing will be required at Sepang, Phillip Island and Losail –where the riders will rack up the kilometres needed to reach top shape for the March 20th MotoGP World Championship opener in Qatar. The season itself will see the riders spend more than 100 days at tracks in 15 different countries, and take almost one hundred flights in the space of a year. The demands of the World Championship is such that, across every race, Marquez and Pedrosa could lose as much as 90kg in sweat between them. They attempt to offset this by taking on 61 litres of water at the hottest rounds.The first stop is a three-day test at the always demanding and sweltering Sepang International Circuit.

Video and images courtesy of ‘Repsol Media Service’.