Former MotoGP rider, 2003 World Superbike Champion, and current TNT Sports MotoGP puꦕndit Neil Hodgson spun a few laps of the Red Bull Ring in anticipation of last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix on a KTM RC16 to get a taste of modern MotoGP.

Hodgson 🍸spent one year in MotoGP, 2004, following his title triumph in 2003, which was the debut year of KTM in GP racing, when it ran in 125cc class.

By now, it’s a multiple MotoGP race 🉐winner with its RC16, which is among the most advanced bikes on the current grid.

Before his session on the RC16, Hodgson hadn’t ridden💫 a MotoGP bike since ဣhe had a few laps at Misano on the 2016 Ducati Desmosedici eight years ago.

Compared to then, Hodgson said in his TNT Sports feature, “A lot has 💯changed: aero, ride height devices, and that engine — power, loads of power, about 300bhp. These bikes are animals.”

While the engine is more powerful now, the manufacturers, including KTM, h🐽ave worked — especially in the past five or six years — on solutionജs to use as much of that power as possible for as much of the lap as possible. 

Aerodynamics prevent wheelie, as do ride height devices, and both of these also help to increase braking performance by inc꧂reasing front load, and therefore front grip,🍃 during braking.

Hodgson’s first impression of the bike wasn’t about the newest 💃technology, though, rather the size of the bike, and the carbon brakes, which require an incredible ಞamount of heating  to begin working. 

“It feels small, straight away,” he said while on the bike. “My god, the brakes aren’t working — I ൩was already waiting for that to be the case.”

Beyond that, the sta☂bility of the bike impressed Hodgson, as well as the smoothness of the seamless-shif💎t gearbox. 

“First thought: gearbox, unbelievabl♎e. [...] It feels so stable, so stable.

After one or two laps, Hodgson started to open the bike up a bit more. On using the ride height device for the first time, he said: “Oh my god. I♊ can’t talk, I can’t concentrate."

While the aerodynamics help to keep the fr🐻ont wheel on the gro💫und coming out of corners, the new ground effect aerodynamics, pioneered in MotoGP by Aprilia in 2022, help mid-corner.

“What a bike! It turns, it feels planted round the corners, but so fast, like ridiculously f𝕴ast,” Hodgson said. “No wheelie, it’s unbelievable.

“What I l💯ove [is] the brakes feel so good. That gearbox, this chassis — everything is unbelievable. Unbelievable. It just turns! You look at the corner and it just goes to it.

“What a bike, honestly. What a bike. You can’t believe how good it is. It sounds like I’m e﷽xaggerating for TV, I promise you I’m not. Unbeliev🤪able, unbelievable.”

Fo🍷llowing his ride on th♊e RC16, Hodgson continued to break down his impressions of the bike.

“The🅠 best bike I’ve ever ridden times-1000,” he said. “Talk about game c𒆙hanger, talk about the game’s moved on. It’s unreal. No wheelie, full power. The front brake, you can feel every little bit of that front tyre.

"You look at the corner and the bike turns into it. It’s outrageous, I can🉐’t believe they’re not going faster. That’s how good the bike is. Stunning.

“It felt nothing like what I expected, it was like everything’s on s🎐teroids. It’s so precise, like nothing [else].

🌠“I 𒆙rode the Ducati, but that was eight years ago, so you can’t compare the two — it feels like you’re comparing a superbike against a MotoGP bike. That [the RC16) is the most precise, beautiful machine I’ve ever ridden.”

Hodgso♍n then spoke to Jack Miller, and spoke about how different the MotoGP machine is to ride compared to a road bike.

“It’s been so long since I rode a proper bike. You get used to riding street bikes anಞd they’re just vague. [On the RC16], you just look at the🔯 corner and it just drops in. And the front brake, I can feel every bar, or 0.1 of a bar I can feel it.

“That is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It was even bett🔯er than I expected, and actually quite easy to ride. I thought it’d be ne🔯rvous and twitchy, but it didn’t feel like that at all.”