Keith Huewen: Repsol? Alex Rins ‘in a good place’ at LCR

Rins, riding for the satellite LCR team, celebrated Honda’s first MotoGP win since Marc Marquez in 2021 and now holds third in the world championship.

Former Suzuki team-mate Mir has had less early success on the RCV, with a best finish of eleventh for 19th in the world championship, after missing one race due to injury.

With both riders on factory HRC contracts, podcast host Harry Benjamin raised recent speculation that Honda should think about trying to swap Rins and Mir.

Contractually, it’s a non-starter. But even if it was possible, would Repsol even be the right move for Rins?

Former grand prix rider and British champion Huewen said: “ 'One swift [bird] doesn’t make a summer’, as the saying goes. We know Rins goes really well at COTA, so the Circuit of the Americas may be just a bit of a one-off.

“That said, Lucio Cecchinello is also a great boss to work with, as an ex-rider, so Rins is in a good place right now, whereas it seems like there's so much tension and pressure in the factory Honda team.

“I've said it time and time again, I remember the first factory bike I got - it was a nightmare! The trouble with having the very latest factory bikes is they are so cutting edge you're working in areas you've not been in before, versus using an older spec bike that is better known and understood.

“Look at Alex Marquez, he steps on that year-old Ducati and straight away it works for him. It’s about having a good baseline setting for what you’ve got, rather than always getting the absolute latest bits.

“Rins is also likely to get a bit more flexibility from LCR, in that Lucio will allow you to try things that maybe the main factory Honda team won't want you to experiment with. Because Honda has always been quite rigid in that way, and that’s also why all this talk of the Kalex frame is so surprising. Is it a sign of good progress from Honda or desperation? We'll have to see.”

Crash.net’s MotoGP editor Pete McLaren said: “I think there’s an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’ if you are pushing for Rins at Repsol. As Franco Morbidelli found, moving from a satellite to a factory team isn’t a guarantee of better results.

“Riders need all the little pieces to fit into place to perform at their best – bike, team, crew etc. It’s not always the latest thing that’s the best. Whatever Rins has got is working in that LCR team - at least at COTA. If he were to give that up and go to the factory team, he might find himself in the same position as Mir, who is taking longer to get comfortable.

“Rins is on a factory contract, on a 2023 bike, okay not the very latest spec, but as he showed in COTA, he’s got the parts he needs to perform well. I wouldn’t want to change much if I was him.

“Both Rins and Mir were also very evenly matched as team-mates at Suzuki, Mir won the world championship, Rins more races. So I think it would be a bit of a rash move to even think about switching the Honda rider line-up after only three rounds!”

Benjamin then added a follow-up question sent in by a listener on the subject of the different frames at Honda, with other topics covered by listeners including whether Remy Gardner could be a contender for the 2024 factory Yamaha seat after the Toprak test, plus the balance between technology and entertainment in MotoGP.

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