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Honda MotoGP team boss Alberto Puig says his outfit’s ongoing slump is rooted in a “progressive confluence of issues” – and admits both its and fellow Japanese brand Yamaha need to rethink how they operate in grand prix racing.
Puig took over the reins of Honda’s MotoGP team from Livio Suppo for 2018, overseeing two titles with Marc Marquez before the Honda talisman got hurt at the start of 2020.
Marquez’s subsequent injury struggles hamstrung Honda’s premier-class programme, massively reliant on its lead rider, but now that he’s convinced he’s back in full fitness the relative competitiveness of the Honda RC213V is instead the bigger issue, with the era’s defining rider unable to drag it to the front without also putting himself under an astronomical risk of crashes.
Aside from Alex Rins’ fairytale Circuit of the Americas win, it has all largely combined for an extremely barren and injury-laden season for Honda so far – and while it is not quite last in the constructors’ standings, it is only seven points clear of fellow struggler Yamaha despite having two more bikes, albeit with many of its bikes ending up parked in the garage with no fit rider to climb aboard come race time.
Honda’s constructors’ points progression (compared to total available)
2016 – 82.0% (champions)
2017 – 79.3% (champions)
2018 – 83.3% (champions)
2019 – 89.7% (champions)
2020 – 41.4%
2021 – 47.6%
2022 – 31.0%
2023 – 30.0% (ongoing)
A commonly-held belief has been that the operational characteristics that Honda and Yamaha have in common through their status as major Japanese companies are to blame for their near-parallel declines – and while that may seem simplistic, it is also a view Puig subscribes to.
“The European manufacturers in recent years were very aggressive, they took a lot of risks,” said Puig. “Risk means that you can make mistakes but they accepted the mistakes.
“And probably the Japanese tradition is more conservative, and with the new regulations they should probably [change] – based on the results, because it’s not so difficult to see, the results are the parametre or the indicator of what’s going on.
“It’s clear that they have to probably change a little bit the approach. I mean, they have very-very good things, but probably they have to change the approach and probably be more reactive than they are used to being.
“It’s true that it’s more difficult to be fast or react fast if you are Japan than if you are in Europe.
“But finally, we have to try to be faster and react faster.”
The RC213V has fallen behind in the now-crucial area of aerodynamics, but there are also major questions about its engines and how the control electronics are operated.
Rins’ COTA win reinforced the fact it is not a bike without strengths, but virtually all of the headlines it’s generated since came courtesy of a remarkable crash total, coming both from riders seemingly over-riding and a frequently-noted lack of feedback from the machinery.
Honda’s slump has been occasionally attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly how it made life more difficult for the Japanese brands, both due to the restrictions back at home and more generally in what still clearly remains a very European championship.
For Puig, this is certainly one of the reasons – but he doesn’t feel there has been one specific mistake to pinpoint.
“Well… mistake… I mean, now we are talking about mistakes because we are in the s**t. But we did also some things good, yes?” he quipped.
“So… I think if you look back, 2020 we had this COVID, we had Marc’s injury, and from then on it was just downhill. The Marc situation was really complicated, from the rider point of view with his injuries – but also from the company point of view, it was not so easy for our engineers to travel back to Japan and to Europe, so they had to stay in Europe, they could not develop the bike as they were used to doing in the past, because they were not exchanging so much info, were not going back, you know?
“Suddenly, in this type of racing activity now – one day you go out there and you lose two tenths, and the next day four, and then one second, and then you are history.
“And I don’t think it has been some particular moment. But it has been, let’s say, a progressive confluence of issues that brought us to this current situation.”
And it is this that seemingly informs Puig’s understanding that the situation will not change “from night to day”.
“We are facing problems not only this year but the past years also. It’s really not been easy at all. And, it’s clear that we still couldn’t find a clear solution. It’s not that we are not trying, but it’s that we are not really solving.
“The situation is really not good at all. The only thing we can do is keep trying to somehow come out of this bad moment.”
