Marquez, Espargaro continue work on 2022 Honda prototypes

After spending most of day one on the 2022 Honda prototype, Marc Marquez put more laps on an all-black machine on the morning of the final day at the Misano MotoGP test.

However, it seems this machine was slightly different to Tuesday's bike, at least in terms of the air intake (and therefore perhaps also the engine design).

Either way, the eight-time world champion then switched emphasis to this year's machine, trying some of the various different chassis and 'concepts' available for the bike.

"Yesterday we focussed all day on the prototype and today I focused also on the prototype in the morning then in the first part of the afternoon I focussed more on the current bike because we are still trying different frames and concepts also," Marquez explained.

"Basically, I'm happy," added the Spaniard, who set the tenth fastest lap of the day. "It's true that everybody says the same in the tests, because there is a lot of grip everybody is fast, everybody is happy! But we did interesting things."

For Repsol team-mate Espargaro, who like Marquez has struggled for rear grip this season, Wednesday was his first chance to try the '22 prototype, which has a different air intake, exhaust, seat unit and aerodnamics compared to the current machine.

"As always when you test a new thing it's good and bad things mixed together. But by the end I think we 'powered' the strong points of the bike and I think we did a good job overall, a good rhythm," Espargaro said of the prototype.

"The bike feels good, but it's a brand new bike. It needs to keep developing until the pre-season of next year. Still a lot of time, so there is margin to improve.

"We were focussing yesterday on trying to take the best package possible [for this year] and today we were focussing a little bit more on 2022. But everything we are doing is important. Even the things we are changing on the current bike are important for the future too."

Espargaro set the sixth fastest lap time of the day, 0.342s behind brother Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia).

LCR's Takaaki Nakagami was the quickest of the Honda riders, in second, with team-mate Alex Marquez 13th.Marquez worked on weight balance and trying some of the various chassis available for the 2021 RC213V, with Nakagami spending time on the latest aero package.