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Pol Espargaro says being cut off from Honda’s MotoGP development process has made him feel like the marque is “wasting time and money with me”.
The 31-year-old Spaniard bolstered his reputation as one of MotoGP’s most outspoken and publicly-earnest riders with a frank admission coming into his final weekend in Repsol Honda colours in Valencia.
The two-year Espargaro/Honda combination never came good for any prolonged period of time, even amid an RC213V redesign for 2022, and Espargaro finally confirmed that he was not going to continue as a Honda rider in early August – even if the writing had been on the wall for quite some time before.
Esparagro did indicate that Honda may have offered him a stay as part of LCR, but he ultimately favoured a return to familiar stomping grounds and will next year again ride a KTM RC16, this time as part of the new-look Gas Gas satellite team.
Speaking about what he’d learned from his difficult Honda tenure, Espargaro alluded to discovering “different ways of working at Honda”, which he then elaborated on: “The methods of working that I was used to with a European manufacturer after four years at KTM, and they work in a different way. And that I did not expect.
“Maybe I was a lot of time in there, and [having debuted in MotoGP with Yamaha] I forgot how the Japanese worked, how the philosophy of the Japanese is.”
He was then asked about the fact he has been perceived as no longer being involved in the Honda development process once he’d agreed to his Gas Gas deal – and made it clear this was very much one of the “methods” he was alluding to.
Honda has trialled many development parts over the second half of the 2022 season, from a Kalex-developed swingarm to a radically revamped aero set-up and modified chassis.
But it’s been the returning Marc Marquez, test rider Stefan Bradl and LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami that have been running the various parts – with both Espargaro and the Gresini Ducati-bound Alex Marquez left displeased at what they have perceived as being cut off from the development pipeline.
This is, ultimately, fairly standard motorsport practice when an exit is made official – but Espargaro has insisted that it was different for him when he was leaving KTM at the end of 2020.
“It’s how I worked at KTM. KTM, till Valencia, I think at Valencia [the grand prix weekend, as the traditional post-season test was scrapped] I was testing new things,” he recalled. “In Valencia was the first time I was trying the rear [ride height] device for them. Which is an important thing now.
“So I was testing in the last race the rear device for them. And I helped them improve it. So, you know, it’s different ways of working.
“I think… the one I’m living in is the wrong one, I really think so. But it’s the way of doing things. I’m nobody to tell them how to do things. I’m just a rider who rides the bike. That’s it.”
Asked whether it was difficult to accept, Espargaro – whose form has particularly tailed off since the confirmation of his impending departure – was particularly forthright: “Yeah. It’s difficult to accept. But in the end, it ends up in the same place.
“It’s not my factory, not my bike. I’m just a guy that they pay to ride the bike. That’s it. And I do whatever they want.
“For sure I don’t like – for sure, I feel that they are wasting time and money with me. Because I could be motivated and full power and doing results and enjoying more the things.
“But at the end of the day I don’t know if they don’t do [give me new parts] because they don’t want or because they can’t. So this is the point where I am now.”
