Honda has yet to clinch a podium between its factory team riders and factory-backed runners at LCR in 2021, with Takaaki Nakagami claiming the brand’s best-ever result in fourth at Jerez.
Espargaro’s team-mate Marc Marquez stated after the Catalan Grand Prix weekend that the main problem with the current Honda is the lack of grip when accelerating, which in turn affects braking performance.
During the post-race tests in Jerez and Barcelona, Honda tried various new items – with a black motorcycle with a different front air intake, which is believed to be a prototype of 2022.
Espargaro, who has criticized Honda’s working methods this year in terms of motorcycle alignment, says he didn’t have any major new parts to test in Barcelona and believes that with their experience in difficult situations, the brand can improve their current package.
Speaking of the Barcelona test ahead of the German Grand Prix this weekend, Espargaro said: “We didn’t have any big parts.
“We are now in the process of understanding our problems and then trying to understand exactly what the problem is.
“Then from that moment on, build a new chassis, new arms, new things that will come soon.
“But now we’re in the process of just trying out a few little new things, little older things from the past that we think might be useful.
“And with all of the information we have, and all of the data and material Honda has today and in the past, I think we can improve the situation quite a bit.
“We don’t have to build a completely new bike to improve the problems we are currently facing.
“The good thing about Honda is that it has been in MotoGP for many years and that they have amazing data on all of the problems they have had in their history and they have the solutions to those problems.
“Well, we’re just discovering that we’ve tried different things on bikes in Barcelona.
“Some of these worked really well and after a good test you want to go somewhere else to get the bike back on track to see if what you tried was right or not.
“We are in that moment when we are happy, but we don’t know what to expect.”