{"id":473549,"date":"2026-02-11T20:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473549\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T20:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:21:08","slug":"diogo-moreira-staying-calm-honda-is-super-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/473549\/","title":{"rendered":"Diogo Moreira staying \u201ccalm\u201d, Honda is \u201csuper good\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reigning Moto2 world champion Diogo Moreira completed a \u2018tiring\u2019 six days at Sepang with 20th place on the timesheets.<\/p>\n<p>The reigning Moto2 world champion set a best lap of 1m 58.476s, leaving him 2.074s adrift of leader Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati).<\/p>\n<p>That was also marginally slower than his predecessor at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/lcr-honda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LCR Honda<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1043651\/somkiat-chantra\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Somkiat Chantra<\/a>, who posted a 1m 58.129s (+1.636s) as a rookie at the same test last year.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, Moreira trimmed two and a half seconds from his pace compared to day one of the Shakedown, ultimately finishing just behind fellow rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu on the Pramac Yamaha.<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/gng_1289868_hires_1600x900.jpg\"   type=\"image\/jpeg\" alt=\"Diogo Moreira, 2026 Sepang MotoGP Test (Gold&amp;Goose).\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.78\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Diogo Moreira, 2026 Sepang MotoGP Test (Gold&amp;Goose).<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe balance is&#8230; I\u2019m super tired!\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/1044199\/diogo-moreira\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Moreira <\/a>said. \u201cBut I think the progress was super nice. Day by day, the feeling was better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made the base setup for us, did a lot of laps and understand more the bike. I think we are in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old explained that the best advice he received was to remain patient.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCalm\u2026 we have all year to improve and learn. The team helped me a lot. So I\u2019m super happy on this point. We need to keep going like this and for sure we need to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sepang MotoGP Test: Best lap time by manufacturer 2025 vs 2026Manufacturer2025 Test2026 Test2026 DifferenceDucati1&#8217;56.493s1&#8217;56.402s-0.091sAprilia1&#8217;57.328s1&#8217;56.526s-0.802sHonda1&#8217;57.204s1&#8217;56.874s-0.330sKTM1&#8217;57.175s1&#8217;57.116s-0.059sYamaha1&#8217;56.724s1&#8217;57.580s+0.856s<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Moreira admitted he has had limited opportunity to speak with Honda\u2019s more experienced riders but is convinced of the RC213V\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to have some time to speak because at the end I have my work to do and they have their work to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I think the bike is super good. We see Mir, also Marini, also Aleix [Espargaro] in the Shakedown was super fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team-mate Johann Zarco finished 16th overall, 0.875s quicker than the Brazilian, after overcoming early set-up difficulties with the latest Honda.<\/p>\n<p>Moreira now has two further days of testing at Buriram on February 21\u201322 before making his<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> MotoGP<\/a> race debut the following weekend.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Chantra, meanwhile, has switched to WorldSBK with Honda&#8217;s factory team, but will miss the upcoming Phillip Island season opener due to a training injury.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning Moto2 world champion Diogo Moreira completed a \u2018tiring\u2019 six days at Sepang with 20th place on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,3554,914,15613,806,805,803,804,16242,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-473549","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-diogo-moreira","11":"tag-honda","12":"tag-lcr-honda","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-somkiat-chantra","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473549","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=473549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}