MotoGP | Honda sacrifices power while waiting for new engine

Race after race, Honda continues to experiment, especially with its engine. We knew that the Japanese brand would have to wait until the end of the summer to receive significant news, but this has not stopped it from continuing to evaluate different specifications of its V4 in recent weeks.

A new engine was launched in Barcelona and very quickly the riders felt a gain in cornering but also a reduction in power, which led them to abandon it. At Sachsenring, this specification was reintroduced on the RC213V and at Silverstone, the factory team riders fitted it again, while Johann Zarco of Team LCR returned to the old version.

“Zarco’s engine is a little more powerful, it has more horsepower, more top speed, but it is very difficult to manage,” explained Luca Marini. “I don’t like it and for me, for the development of the bike that will come, it is not the way to follow. With my current engine, we know that we lose two tenths on the straight, but this is what will work for the future, we have to develop this engine because this is how we will find more performance in the future.”

Joan Mir, who retired with a loss of power that appeared to be linked to an electronics issue in the British GP, made similar comments. “For me it was a step back to do two in the future, that’s a bit of why we lost performance,” said the 2021 world champion, who feels “a bit better” with his current engine… pending clearer progress.

“We chose this with the team, even if we took a step back, this is the direction for the future. We await the next evolution in the next races. There is nothing else to say. We cannot ask for too much. The bike is not very fast on the straight, you can see that I am always behind and on the longer circuits, where you are more on the gas, I struggle more”.

“On all the straights, when you compare yourself to the others and watch the videos, you see that we lose a lot of time,” Mir explained. “Two tenths or three tenths… In all parts of the straight, normally the rider does nothing and we are already losing time. It’s stressful on this circuit (Silverstone). You can easily lose a second and a half just because of that. We are aware of our limits at the moment, I think we just have to stay on the bike.”

Marini finally feels listened to by Honda

Although the two factory team riders agree on their preference for this engine, Mir believes Zarco had “the best package” in terms of performance in Britain. Marini, for his part, is certain that the development of the less powerful engine should continue and is pleased that Honda’s engineers have taken his comments into account.

“I am sure of myself. Whenever you try something, you try it very carefully and when I am sure that something works and is better, whatever was there before disappears for me. At the moment there is no point in changing many things, many parts.”

“When it is clear that one engine is better than another, I continue to work on it and try to develop this engine better than the others, even if my engine is significantly slower than Zarco’s. It is my choice to continue to develop it because it works better with these parts, this wing and this chassis.”

Luke Marini

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“Finally everyone is following me, so I think it will help Honda to have clearer information to focus on one thing and be faster. If the four riders have different requests, the feedback is not clear enough for them, so it is more difficult to satisfy everyone. I think we all complained more or less about the same thing, but the situation has improved.”

While European brands have to keep the same engine version throughout the year, the concessions available to Japanese brands leave them free to develop, and Honda should take advantage of this starting from the next round on the calendar, in Austria.

“We have nothing new here, nothing,” Mir said at Silverstone, not hiding a certain impatience, given that the RC213V is set to undergo major changes in the coming weeks: “The most important changes will come in the next races, maybe in Austria we will have a different engine configuration, a swingarm, things on the chassis, aerodynamics… All these important things will happen in the next GPs.”

With Nina Prognon