The 2014 Honda bike made its track debut in the hands of Stefan Bradl on Tuesday, although the first day of this weekend’s MotorLand Aragon test was very much washed out by heavy rain. Alvaro Bautista was the only other rider to leave the pits ahead of track visits for Yamaha and Suzuki on Wednesday.

Having skipped the Official MotoGP™ Test in Barcelona on Monday, Repsol Honda Team had hoped to make the most of an empty circuit in Aragon today. However, that plan went up in smoke as rain affected proceedings for the majority of the day – not least just after 4pm, when very heavy showers struck north-eastern Spain.


Despite the pouring rain, LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl completed 15 laps with the black-liveried 2014 Honda, whereas GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Bautista lapped a dozen times in order to rectify some doubts after crashing out of Sunday’s race at the Circuit de Catalunya. Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez did not leave the pit lane at all.

"This is the prototype of the 2014 machine," explained Takeo Yokoyama, Technical Director for Repsol Honda. "It is a completely new bike, both in terms of engine and chassis.

"Our plan is to test it now in order to be able to make, eventually, some changes before the post-race test in Valencia in November. Anyway, if Dani and Marc find something on the bike that they feel is a really big improvement compared to their actual RC213V, HRC will do its best to provide it already later this season as we did last year."

The teams hope for more favourable conditions on Wednesday, as those present will be joined by Yamaha Factory Racing duo Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi as well as Randy de Puniet with the 1,000cc Suzuki prototype. Once again, the session will run from 10am-6pm local time (GMT +2).

.