{"id":179966,"date":"2025-09-30T12:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T12:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179966\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T12:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T12:16:09","slug":"lcr-gives-update-as-star-moto2-riders-honda-motogp-deal-looks-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179966\/","title":{"rendered":"LCR gives update as star Moto2 rider&#8217;s Honda MotoGP deal looks close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LCR MotoGP team boss Lucio Cecchinello remains tight-lipped on Diogo Moreira\u2019s future with the squad, amid rumours of him signing a three-year Honda deal.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite Honda squad had originally signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1043651\/somkiat-chantra\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Somkiat Chantra<\/a> on a two-year deal beginning this season.<\/p>\n<p>But the Thai rider\u2019s poor form for far has prompted Honda into a rethink on how it organises the second seat at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/lcr-honda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LCR<\/a>, which has typically been geared around promoting young Asian talent.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer, reports emerged that Moto2 frontrunner Diogo Moreira &#8211; currently second in the intermediate class standings &#8211; had offers from Yamaha and Honda on the table, and has elected to sign for the latter to join LCR in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Official confirmation has not been given yet. However, during the Japanese Grand Prix, reports surfaced that the Brazilian has signed a three-year contract with Honda.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>When probed about this at Motegi, Cecchinello replied: \u201cI am not involved in that kind of deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know that they are talking. But definitely, as you know, Honda will announce it when it is sure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I believe and I keep doing my job and wait for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chantra has so far scored just three points across his rookie campaign so far, the most recent coming in Japan when he was 15th.<\/p>\n<p>The Thai rookie has had to contend with injury problems in 2025, as he suffered a knee issue following a training crash in June. That kept him out for four rounds.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>However, when fit he has failed to impress on the RC213V, with Honda thought to have disregarded the data he has collected in sessions due to his form.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/news\/1082951\/1\/hrc-confirms-2026-worldsbk-line-jake-dixon-and-somkiat-chantra\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chantra will move to Honda\u2019s World Superbike programme for 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He showed flashes of speed at the start of the Motegi weekend, but ultimately qualified at the back of the grid and was 15th largely as a result of non-finishers ahead of him.<\/p>\n<p>Only Honda test rider Aleix Espargaro, who has contested four rounds this year, sits lower than Chantra in the standings after the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LCR MotoGP team boss Lucio Cecchinello remains tight-lipped on Diogo Moreira\u2019s future with the squad, amid rumours of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,15613,806,805,803,804,16242,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-179966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-lcr-honda","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-somkiat-chantra","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}