MotoGP<\/a> pit lane reporter Jack Appleyard before Sunday\u2019s grand prix, Espargaro said:<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not allowed really to talk about that [850cc] project, but the thing that I can tell you is that the bike is very fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe riders will have a lot of fun. It’s a lot more fun than the 1000 bike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pirelli tyres are super grippy and with a little bit less torque on the bottom, you can rush a little bit in the apex.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bike is more than 10kg lighter, so the change of direction is super good.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the riders – and I think also the people at home – will have fun because I think there will be a lot more battles.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cI really can’t wait to show everybody the new bike.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside smaller engines and a switch from Michelin to Pirelli tyres, ride-height devices will be banned and tighter restrictions placed on aerodynamics for 2027.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Espargaro became the latest to suggest that lap times won\u2019t be much slower than the current record-breaking machines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot say many numbers, but the only thing that I will tell you is that we compared both bikes, the 1000 bike and the 850, and they are closer than what people said,\u201d revealed the triple MotoGP race winner.<\/p>\n
![\"Aleix](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1288257_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Aleix Espargaro, HRC test rider.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Sepang accident “completely my mistake”<\/p>\n
Espargaro hopes to be fit to rejoin Honda testing duties, alongside Takaaki Nakagami, by late summer.<\/p>\n
“I’m good. It was completely my mistake. I braked too late in the back straight, locked the rear brake and flew,” Espargaro said of his Sepang accident.<\/p>\n
“I did a big high side, probably the worst crash of my career. I landed on my back and I destroy four vertebrae. Luckily, they did a very good job in with the surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Now it’s one month, so I still need a couple of months of recovery, but hopefully I can be back by the last part of the summer when the new 850 prototype will arrive from Japan.<\/p>\n
“So hopefully we’ll be ready to keep developing it.”<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The next generation of 850cc MotoGP bikes are \u201cmore fun\u201d to ride than the current 1000cc machines. That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[163184,64,63,245659,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-682935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-aleix-espargaro","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-honda-hrc-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682935","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=682935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Aleix](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1314838_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n