The principle that when things go wrong they can always get worse fits perfectly with Honda, which has hit rock bottom in the last two weeks. Neither Marc Marquez, nor Alex Rins, nor Joan Mir, its three most competitive riders, took part in the last two rounds of the calendar, at Sachsenring and Assen, due to injuries.
The most striking case is that of Marquez, the pillar of the whole team, who decided not to race in Germany on Sunday after accumulating five crashes in two and a half days and breaking several bones. Although he traveled to the “Cathedral” and took to the track both on Friday and Saturday, the Spaniard also withdrew from the long race after aggravating the rib fracture he sustained seven days earlier.
Honda, the strongest manufacturer in the championship, is at the bottom of the constructors’ standings and shows no sign of slowing down its decline. Marquez, meanwhile, has entered this season with the sole aim of returning to winning ways, having gone through the most difficult period of his life with the management of an arm injury sustained in July 2020, which took up to four operations and from which he has now fully recovered.
After the last intervention, now a year ago, the Catalan made it clear to the Tokyo club that his intention was to respect his contract, which expires in 2024, as long as they provide him with the necessary tools to be able to fight for victories. “Otherwise, I’ll make a living,” he said, according to the documentary “All In,” which he produced and released just before the season kicked off.
Three months have passed, Marquez still hasn’t scored a single Sunday and his state of mind is that of someone who is desperate, a circumstance that feeds those who believe that the only solution they have to achieve their goal is to break with his current team without even waiting for his relationship to end. Above all because there is the feeling that Honda knows how to turn the situation around, but is not willing to implement the changes necessary to make the recovery effective.
Bike of Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The Coronavirus pandemic that blocked Japan until recently has wreaked havoc on Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki, which were hit far more seriously than Ducati, KTM and Aprilia at the time. In fact, the entire MotoGP caravan that traveled to Motegi in September last year still needed a special visa to enter the country.
This block, combined with Marquez’s long-term absence – he spent a year without racing -, the giant leap made by Ducati, which dominates the starting grid with eight of its Desmosedici GPs, and the evident improvement by Aprilia and KTM, explains the apparent disorientation of Yamaha and Honda, as Suzuki closed its doors at the end of 2022.
This disorientation is evident because within both companies there are those who have a diagnosis of what is happening and also the remedy to solve it. The problem is that this is a very sensitive issue, which makes it difficult to talk about it openly.
The crux of the matter is cultural, and that means no one wants to speak publicly lest they be singled out or accused of something. “Japanese engineers, especially those at Honda, are very proud. And this prevents them from recognizing that their European counterparts may have been ahead of them in some areas, such as aerodynamics,” a technician told Motorsport.com. who has been cooperating with Japanese teams for almost ten years. The same source makes the analogy with what happened in Formula 1 with Aston Martin, which from one year to the next went from seventh place in the constructors’ championship to third.
“What they did was sign key people from the teams that were winning, in this case Red Bull and Mercedes,” adds the authoritative voice, referencing the signings of Dan Fallows and Eric Blandin, among others. Honda have signed Ken Kawauchi as technical manager for 2023, following Suzuki’s exit from the World Championship, with plans to streamline and clean up communication between the team at the circuits and the factory in Japan. The only thing that has been gained from this change is some order.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Apart from Marquez, who receives most of the attention, Honda’s most frequent spokesman is Alberto Puig, the team manager. However, operational decisions are made by HRC’s top management, led by Koji Watanabe, the president, and articulated through Shinichhi Kokubu, the chief technical officer, and Testuhiro Kuwata, the director.
They will have to authorize the inclusion of technical specialists in those areas, such as aerodynamics, where the RC213V is conceivably inferior to other prototypes. In this regard, Motorsport.com understands that the possibility of Honda recruiting top-level and higher-level engineers from another manufacturer, other than Japanese, is out of the question, at least in the short term. This can be interpreted perfectly between the lines, thinking back to the last appearance of Marquez and Puig at Assen last Sunday.
“We have not gone to the root of the problem, and this is not the way to solve it. We are far behind our rivals, we are far behind. It would be too optimistic to think we will have a competitive bike in two months,” replied the former rider. when asked for the margin it deems necessary for a hypothetical recovery. The most worrying thing is not the time it would take, but the fact that the foundations have not even been laid to start doing it.
“The European brands, in recent years, have been very aggressive in their approach to motorcycle development and have taken risks. The Japanese are much more conservative, but, with the parts that are currently on the table and based on the results, certainly they need to change this approach and be more responsive than they have been up to now,” he added.
Marquez, in turn, sidestepped the question when asked directly if he had tried to convince his Japanese bosses of the need to look for talent at Ducati, KTM or Aprilia.
“Obviously I care about the project and I’ve had meetings, like the one last year in Austria, that go in that direction. But the rider evaluates with feedback how the project is progressing. And yesterday (Saturday) I took the same bike from Portimão , because the things that arrived didn’t work. It’s up to the people who make the decisions to do their job, because I have enough to do to get the most out of the bike on the track. There are things that don’t depend on me,” he replied the number 93, in a statement that can be understood by anyone who wants to.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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