---
title: "RC213V’s acceleration still proving problematic for Marquez"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2017/01/30/rc213vs-acceleration-still-proving-problematic-for-marquez/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Lewis Duncan"
section: "MotoGP News"
published: "2017-01-30T17:46:33Z"
modified: "2017-01-30T20:22:12Z"
---

# RC213V’s acceleration still proving problematic for Marquez

Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Marquez has admitted that the RC213V’s new ‘big bang’ engine is still causing him issues with acceleration, a common woe of last season.

The big news at the post-race Valencia test at the end of the 2016 season was Honda’s new engine, which now features a ‘big bang’ firing order as opposed to the ‘screamer’ they were previously using. The aim of the new design was to ease the problems all Honda riders had been having exiting corners.

![Repsol Honda Team](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/01/588f107272e0a9.25078295-904x602.jpg)

The reigning world champion spent the first day of action at the Sepand International Circuit comparing both versions of the 2017 engine brought by HRC (one of which the version first run in Valencia last year), focussing more on the new one, trying to get it to work in harmony with the control electronics.

Though happy to have gathered a lot of data on the new motor, Marquez was still left unsatisfied with it. He highlighted that, while it may have a bit more horsepower, it was still proving too aggressive under acceleration.

“We’ve worked on the engine to try to improve the acceleration and the top speed and we have improved the latter bit, but the problem with acceleration is that if we can’t use it it’s unnecessary to have more (power),” he explained.

“We worked a lot on the engine and the electronics. Tomorrow we must work a lot on this side of the bike because the new engine is completely different, so all the maps we had for the other engine are not working well on this engine.”

![Repsol Honda Team](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/01/588f0f37c90f47.58175833-904x603.jpg)

The Spaniard lapped the Malaysian circuit 56 times today, even spending some time on track late in the session when it was wet – a condition that proved hugely prosperous for Honda riders in 2016. He ended up ninth on the time sheets on a 2m00.738s, just over a second adrift of Casey Stoner’s best pace on the Ducati.

“We gathered a lot of information, and now we’ll keep working. We also decided to make the best of the situation when the rain arrived and did some laps in the wet, but we look forward to continuing testing in the dry tomorrow to better understand and exploit the potential of our bike.”