‘Stagnation’ of MotoGP project a ‘major issue’ for Honda

HRC won seven of the nine MotoGP titles between 2011 and 2019, courtesy of Casey Stoner and then Marc Marquez.

But Honda has taken just four race victories since Marquez’s arm fracture at Jerez 2020 and went winless for the whole of last season.

Injuries for Marquez, COTA winner Alex Rins and Joan Mir in the opening half of this year’s campaign means there is currently no Honda rider in the top 13 of the world championship.

Honda is ahead of only Yamaha in the constructors’ standings, with a clear gap to European brands Ducati, KTM and Aprilia. Such struggles mean there are persistent rumours that star rider Marquez might jump ship at the end of his present contract.

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Watanabe told the Honda Racing website that the decision to integrate the four-wheel division into HRC in 2022 took an entire year due to the cultures being “quite different”.

But he is confident that, “we are beginning to make progress in the collaboration between the two-wheel and four-wheel categories" and confirmed that four-wheel engineers are involved with the MotoGP project.

“Presently, the stagnation of MotoGP is a major issue for Honda/HRC, so we have determined to regain our strength with an all-HRC structure,” Watanabe said.

“To this end, the four-wheel development team is involved in MotoGP development, and is moving to produce tangible results as soon as possible.

“On the other hand, Two-wheel has a long history as a racing company, so we know races and race operations. Two-wheel also has established a business model where HRC makes race parts and delivers them via dealers for users.

“The four-wheel business is just beginning to develop this aspect. There is much to learn from motorcycles in terms of such know-how.

“In that sense, I am convinced that the collaboration between motorcycles and automobiles will produce something even greater than we initially expected.”