Lecuona fears Honda remain in ‘second group’ heading into new WorldSBK season

Following a difficult Jerez test where Lecuona ‘struggled a lot’, the second-year WorldSBK rider found more performance at the recent two-day outing at Portimao.

But while it was a much improved showing, Lecuona and Honda remained over seven tenths down on the leading duo of Alvaro Bautista and Jonathan Rea.

• No minimum rider/bike weight rule confirmed for 2023 WorldSBK season 
• Tech update - what new parts did MotoGP bikes use in Sepang?

Gaps between Bautista, Rea, Toprak Razgatlioglu and Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who has so far made the titanic trio from 2022 into a quartet during pre-season testing, and the rest of the field remains worrisome as they locked out the top four positions on three of the four days of testing so far in 2023.

Speaking at the Team HRC launch earlier this week, Lecuona was keen to point out that race simulations have improved, as has his experience which could play a key role in helping him drag Honda closer to its competition. 

Lecuona added: "At the end, for now, we have already done two tests. In the first one I struggled a lot but in the second one, I felt quite good with the bike and in a race simulation. I felt like we’ve found a good step in the second half of the race. 

"This is the target; last year, we struggled a lot in the second half of the race, so I’ll try to improve it. It helps us a lot that we don’t need to learn the track. 

"We have a base set up for the bike and on Friday, we don’t need to lose time to learn the track. This is a very positive point and a strong point for us. 

"I don’t want to put a big goal this year; for sure, I want to win and fight for the podium and both of us have the potential, but we need a little bit more time. 

"Maybe we can get a bit closer to the podium, but we’ll see. I’m very excited to start and I think we can do a very good second year in WorldSBK."

Start of 2023 WorldSBK season will reveal ‘our real level’

While testing saw Lecuona improve his race simulations quite considerably, the former MotoGP rider is not getting ahead of himself as testing is not always an accurate assessment of how the season will play out. 

"Honestly, we’ve improved our level and we’re quite happy about the second part of the race in the race simulations. We need to wait until the first races to know our real level," said the Spaniard. 

"I think we can fight for the second group, but not with the first one. Alvaro with the new bike has a lot of potential and this package is unbelievable. Jonny and Toprak, we know their level too. 

"Maybe at the end of the year, we can fight but we need more time to understand the new parts of the bike and the new pieces."