Honda's progress with its RC213V MotoGP bike made it the first manufacturer to switch concession ranks under the current system - but it went beyond that.
The last-minute nature of that shift from Rank D to Rank C - ensured (very marginally) by Luca Marini's seventh-place finish on the final day of the season - undersells the scope of Honda's forward momentum relative to where it had been the month prior.
Thought Honda still finished only fourth in the manufacturers' standings, in terms of manufacturers' points (as a share of total available points) it took the biggest step forward of any brand since KTM went from backmarker to genuine win threat seemingly overnight between 2019 and 2020.
Biggest manufacturers' points swings since 2021
Honda: +24.9% in 2025
Aprilia: +22.7% in 2022
Ducati: +16.2% in 2021
...
Honda: -15.3% in 2024
Honda: -16.6% in 2022
Yamaha: -17.5% in 2022
It was a genuine transformation. But, as tester Aleix Espargaro put it, "Honda have to be [Rank] A soon". And it's fair to ask just how much more it can find before the regulations - and tyres! - reset in 2027.
As Honda maximised the final months of its Rank D status with extensive testing work that also incorporated its race riders, there was a consistent note of optimism coming out from the camp about how things were looking for 2026.
And, indeed, the prototype raced by Espargaro as a wildcard in the Valencia finale showed out well.
But both Espargaro, and the full-time riders sampling the newest spec in the Tuesday post-season test, emphasised that it cannot be another fundamental shift.
The difference to what Marini and team-mate Joan Mir were already racing at the end of the year after mid-season upgrades was "not huge, really", Espargaro acknowledged.
"The '26 package is just one step different [right now] - improving in swingarm, for example, I have a bit more stability than them on the brakes, the engine will be a little bit faster, some different electronics. It's just small updates.
"They can't expect a complete revolution because the bike that Joan and Luca are riding right now is very close to mine.
"But now we are not super far from them [the leaders], so we need small steps, one small step will be here in Valencia and hopefully Honda will bring another one or two in the Malaysia test [in early 2026]."
Mir described it as the "same Honda with some different things, but the base is quite the same", while Marini reckoned it is "slightly improved" with a "good step forward everywhere", though admitted the conditions in the Valencia test weren't ideal for getting any real clarity.
"Seems like this bike is working well, not any bad points but not any super positive points neither," said LCR Honda rider Johann Zarco, winner of the French Grand Prix in May. "We can recognise a lot the DNA of Honda on it. And we will have, I think, aero evolution in Malaysia [in the pre-season], but the bike we have now will be very similar when we restart testing in Malaysia.
"But we can feel this new bike - we always complain about grip, grip, grip, all the time, [but with] this one, there are some areas where you feel more grip.
"Then I didn't feel that this grip improved a lot the [actual] performance, but maybe now having the bike that can create this grip, maybe we need to find a different balance on the bike, also [in] the riding, to use as well as possible this evolution.
"I do not expect any big, big things, and I think the aero will make the bigger difference when we will have it. But I feel we have a good potential. But then it's very difficult to find the right balance."
"We just need to make the next step in terms of aero. You check the Aprilia, the KTM, the Ducati, they are a bit in front of us in this," Mir concurred.
"When you have a year such as this, that they work so hard to provide us material as soon as possible, it's difficult to arrive in Valencia with plenty of things to try."
The question, then, is whether slowing down with the rate of progress still gives Honda enough time to make an impact in the final races of this ruleset.
A sporadic impact but no more than that is probably a realistic and sensible target - again, Honda just barely snuck into Rank C - and there probably should be an acceptance that 2026 just needs to be respectable.
More important is for Honda to have institutional confidence that the same processes that enabled this step forward are firing on all cylinders coming into 2027.
