Honda’s 2026 MotoGP campaign has not met internal expectations, according to team boss Alberto Puig, who gave a candid mid-season assessment following a lackluster first half of the year.
After a promising 2025 season—highlighted by a French Grand Prix win and multiple podiums—hopes were high for Honda. However, the team sits on 109 points after 11 rounds, down from 141 at the same stage last year. Joan Mir’s podium at the Catalan GP was also wiped from the record books due to a tyre pressure penalty.
“We were expecting something more,” Puig admitted to the official MotoGP website. “On the bike we’ve made some progress, some gains. On the results, not so much. We got the podium in Barcelona, but maybe we were expecting something more. I think we are a bit more consistent than last year on average.”
Puig acknowledged that while the bike has been upgraded, the improvements haven’t been enough to make a significant leap forward: “We have upgraded the bike a little bit but probably not enough to make the second step. What we did implementing onto this bike is going to help us next year.”
With development resources shifting toward the all-new 2027 bike, Puig tempered expectations for major progress in the remainder of 2026. “It’s not so easy, in terms of we don’t have… I mean, people are thinking about the new bike,” he said. “Still, there are some small things we can adjust, but basically try to focus on what we have and just race to our best level.”
Honda aims to find improvements in setup and squeeze the best from its current package as it looks ahead to future development.
