A conversation with Honda changed Aleix Espargaro’s plans in professional cycling – After serious crashes, he should avoid racing – The focus is on testing
When Aleix Espargaro ended his career as a full-time MotoGP rider at the end of 2024 and joined the Honda test team, he wanted to pursue his second great passion in his spare time: cycling. He joined the professional cycling team Lidl-Trek.
His first major tour was planned for July, when he was set to participate in the Tour of Austria. However, it was not an easy undertaking for Espargaro. After crashes, the event formerly known as the Tour of Austria was over in the third stage.
At the beginning of August, Espargaro competed in a smaller one-day event in Spain. Since then, apart from private training sessions, he has not participated in any official cycling events. There is a specific reason for this. Espargaro was supposed to replace Somkiat Chantra in the LCR team in Hungary at the end of August. But shortly before the race weekend, he injured himself in a crash on his road bike. He traveled to the track, but examinations revealed injuries and he did not race.
“There was really a turning point,” recalls the Spaniard. “I arrived completely exhausted, with three broken vertebrae from cycling. Alberto [Puig] sat down with me and said he understood my passion for cycling.”
“But that this was Honda and I needed to focus more. He was absolutely right. I was probably wrong. I didn’t know how to calibrate my role as a test rider. It was all a bit new to me. I thought I could do both, but that’s not the case.“
”In the past two months, I’ve hardly been able to cycle properly. I’ve practically been living in Malaysia doing tests. Next year, I’ll stay with the cycling team, but I won’t be racing professionally.”
“I’ll just train with them and focus more on Honda,” Espargaro emphasizes what his focus will be. Because the winter and the coming year will be intense and very important in terms of private test drives.
“Both Alberto and the Japanese team have asked me to do parallel development next year – with the 2026 bike and the new 2027 bike with Pirelli tires.”
“So I’ll have to devote a lot more time to my work as a Honda test rider.” This is because the work with the new test team around Espargaro, Takaaki Nakagami, and engineer Antonio Jimenez had to be fine-tuned this year. “In the first half of the season, I have to admit that I was really focused on cycling, and the schedule I had with Honda wasn’t right,” Espargaro says, looking back on poor planning on both sides. “I think in the first three, four, five months of the year, I only did one MotoGP test, so I was a bit disconnected. But then, before the summer break, I started doing more tests, I started talking more with Romano [Albesiano].“
”I went to two races to see Joan and Luca and to observe how HRC works within the pit. I have to say that the past three months have been very, very nice, very emotional for me. I enjoyed it a lot, I felt very connected.”
“I started to become more involved with the HRC factory team, and they are really nice people. I love being part of this team. My job is great because I can ride the bike and help them from the pit at the same time.”
Espargaro competed in five races in the 2025 season. Four of those were wildcard appearances with the Honda test team. At Assen, he replaced Luca Marini, who was injured at the time, in the factory team. Espargaro did not score any World Championship points in his appearances.