Nakagami bows out: What it means for Honda and MotoGP

MotoGP veteran Takaaki Nakagami will hand over his LCR Honda ride at the end of the season and transition into a test role.

Rookie Somkiat Chantra has been announced as his replacement.

The 32-year-old Nakagami, who joined the premier class in 2018 after a Moto2 stint that yielded a grand prix win but never quite made him a consistent frontrunner, has accrued triple-digit MotoGP starts and is the third-oldest full-timer on the current grid.

He has a MotoGP pole to his name but never made it onto the podium, his best chance by far going begging in 2020 at the Red Bull Ring thanks to a poorly-timed red flag.

That year was the standout of his all-Honda MotoGP career, during which he proved a potent if inconsistent threat to several of his more-heralded stablemates - but was also compromised by injury, most notably to his right hand at Aragon in 2022, which required several surgical interruptions.

A press release from LCR, the only team Nakagami has raced for in MotoGP (his seat backed by Japanese company Idemitsu), said the team, the company and Honda "can only express gratitude for Taka and wish him the best on his new adventure".

"It's not a goodbye, it's a 'see you very soon'!," said team owner Lucio Cecchinello. "Our bond with Nakagami hasn't finished; it's just about to be transformed, as we will continue to see him inside the HRC [Honda Racing Corporation] MotoGP developing program. 

"Taka is a great, fast rider and an amazing person, working with him has been an absolute pleasure. His politeness, kindness, and professionalism have meant a lot to all the LCR team members and HRC, and we'll be forever grateful."

Nakagami described his stepping aside as his decision, though he had previously acknowledged he was keen to continue into 2025 before Honda came to him with a different offer.

It was long thought that Nakagami's ride was being earmarked for Japan's next big thing, Ai Ogura, but Ogura repeatedly spurned opportunities to take over the ride before this year electing to break with long-time benefactor Honda and sign for Aprilia's satellite team Trackhouse instead.

Chantra, 25, beat Ogura to the Asia Talent Cup title back in 2016 but has had a less accomplished grand prix career - his Moto2 stats largely comparable to what Nakagami had on record before his own graduation.

Chantra is set to become the first Thai rider in the premier class, in a move sure to be popular with MotoGP promoter Dorna.

As for Nakagami, his new role will be that of a "test rider in Japan" - but one who will "also closely follow the [MotoGP] bike's development in Europe".

"Some wildcards" are confirmed for the Japanese, albeit the exact distribution of those remains a source of intrigue.

MotoGP 2025: All the riders confirmed so far

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Honda has already made a big-name test rider signing in Aleix Espargaro, but has also indicated it's keeping incumbent tester Stefan Bradl in the fold.

A total of six wildcards - three either side of the summer break - are available to Honda under its current concession status.

Pramac - switching from Ducati to Yamaha for next year - is the only team left to announce its riders for 2025.

The Race says

"The whole MotoGP paddock respects and admires Taka, and this is something that goes beyond everything," said Cecchinello (pictured above to the right of Nakagami and crew chief Ramon Aurin) as part of the statement.

A cursory glance at his MotoGP results doesn't make it self-evident - but there is in fact a lot to respect and admire.

Yes, Nakagami's presence on the grid for over 100 starts owes itself to sponsorship circumstances and Ogura's unwillingness to ride the RC213V. Yes, the only time he truly spearheaded Honda's efforts was 2020, which carries the massive asterisk of Marc Marquez's injury absence.

Yet even so, Nakagami - when fit, which he wasn't in his worst MotoGP moments - has consistently done enough to make a case for keeping him on.

There was always a chance coming into every weekend that he would somehow get into the groove and show up fellow Honda riders with stronger track records than his. It's been happening this year, too, with him looking by no means out of place in a line-up featuring Joan Mir, Johann Zarco and Luca Marini.

There is a case to be made - though it's not an ironclad one - that he is MotoGP's best-ever rider without podiums. But given the current shape of the RC213V that last fact wasn't going to change any time soon, so this may well be a logical time to call time on his full-time MotoGP race career.

He does seem a fantastic fit for the role suggested by Honda - a rider embedded in the design processes in Japan but experienced enough, eloquent enough, smart enough to mitigate the disconnects between that and the work of the European-based test team and race teams.