The MotoGP world at motorcycle giant Honda continues to look very bleak. The former dominators cannot find a way out of the downward spiral in the premier class. In Barcelona too, the five bikes (including development rider Stefan Bradl) were lagging behind. In Sunday’s Grand Prix, they once again formed the back of the MotoGP field. Only Takaaki Nakagami in P15 would have been able to score points had the MotoGP stewards not given Enea Bastianini a 32-second penalty. So factory rider Joan Mir, in 15th place, picked up the consolation prize of a single World Championship point. Teammate Luca Marini, on the other hand, once again failed to score any points. He is still the only regular rider who has not yet scored any points this season.
However, the largest motorcycle manufacturer is not thinking of giving up on its MotoGP project, quite the opposite. The Japanese are now relying on a strategy of dividing up the work among the RC213V pilots and are hoping to gain useful feedback from this in order to further develop the tool as quickly as possible. Working groups were formed in Barcelona and various parts were tried out on the bikes. On paper, there was initially no success, but the pilots are also drawing positive conclusions about the new parts on their MotoGP rockets.
Johann Zarco: Mugello will show whether we are making progress
For example, Johann Zarco tried out a new aerodynamic package. “I can’t go into detail, but we’re really working on two different bikes,” explained the LCR rider in Catalonia. “I had new aerodynamics that aren’t that bad. They support us with the arms, you need a lot less power and the bike is a lot easier to ride because you have more control in the braking phase.” However, the new development hasn’t had a big impact on performance yet. “Perhaps we’re not seeing the effect so much yet because the grip level here in Barcelona is very poor. We’ll have to wait for the next race in Mugello.”
Teammate Nakagami even spoke of more variants of the RC213V that are currently in use. “Only with my bike did we more or less stick with the same package. Zarco and the Repsol guys tried the new aerodynamics and also used a new engine package, but I don’t know more than that. So we are more or less working on three versions of the bike. The engineers hope to find out from this which package has the most potential and which doesn’t,” said the Japanese.
Summer break as deadline for Honda
He had already fitted the new aerodynamics to his bike during a private test a few weeks ago in Mugello. “I was behind Zarco here in Barcelona and I have to say that I didn’t see any advantage in his bike. At Mugello the new aero worked better, but the grip when turning the bike was still more or less the same. We now have to analyse this further and understand whether it is better or not.”
The LCR driver is therefore not expecting any major leaps in performance in the first half of the season. “We now have to continue testing to understand which package we have to work with. The deadline is the summer break, and we definitely need a fast bike then,” he says, referring to the German Grand Prix as the last opportunity to test the bike in racing in order to prepare as best as possible for the second half of the season.