There are only two motorcycle riders who prevented Marc Marquez from winning the world championship title in the ten years between 2010 and 2019: Stefan Bradl in the 2011 Moto2 World Championship and Jorge Lorenzo in the 2015 MotoGP World Championship.
Ironically, the now 35-year-old Bavarian rider ended up working closely with Marquez as a MotoGP test rider for the Honda Racing Corporation from 2018 until the end of 2023, to then replace him almost thirty times in Repsol-Honda in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Stefan Bradl has now completed seven years as an HRC test rider and competed in his last MotoGP World Championship race on November 8th in Barcelona, where he had made his GP debut in 2005 as a wildcard rider in the Red Bull KTM Junior 125cc team.
HRC has now taken on two more test riders, Aleix Espargaro and Taka Nakagami, to finally get out of the mess they've been in for five embarrassing years, marked by three last places in a row in the Constructors World Championship.
Espargaro and Nakagami will share the six wildcards allowed in 2025 and will also step in if the regular contracted riders (Joan Mir and Luca Marini on the factory team; Johann Zarco and Somkiat Chantra in LCR Honda) were to be injured.
However, Stefan Bradl - whose father, Helmut, only lost the 250cc world championship in 1991 to Luca Cadalora by 17 points after five season victories - is still busy. For example, he'll be testing new material with Nakagami on December 18th-19th in Sepang, Malaysia.
"Aleix won't be there, but he recently completed the first winter test in Barcelona with the contracted riders," seven-time GP winner Bradl said.
It's high time that the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer finally got back on track, because the struggle began exactly in February 2020, when Marc Marquezand Cal Crutchlow plundered Nakagami's LCR garage before the third day of testing because the new 2020 material was no good.
With last year's motorcycles, the two aces improved by about ten places on the final day. Because of Covid, the season didn't start with two Grand Prixs in Jerez until July 19th and 26th and, even then, Marc Marquez was fighting a losing battle with the RC213V.
Yamaha reached two double victories with Quartararo and Viñales, while Yamaha's star rider, Rossi, shone in the second race with a third place. During Marc's fight for a podium finish on July 19th, the fatal crash occurred, which resulted in four upper arm surgeries and three years of suffering for the six-time MotoGP world champion (from 2013 to 2019).
Honda ended the 2022 Constructors World Championship in sixth and last place. In the last two years, they managed to improve to a fifth place, but only because Suzuki dropped out!
Stefan, in 2022, you discovered that Honda could only use 80 percent of the potential of the new soft Michelin tires in qualifying, which resulted in poor starting positions. The package has never really become more competitive as a whole since then. This was also demonstrated by the terrible results of the factory riders, Joan Mir and Luca Marini, in 2024.
"There have been many technical changes in recent years because the competition has presented various innovations. But the competitors are still exploring the technical regulations much more strictly and aggressively.
The other factories are pushing much closer to the limit with the devices, wings, engine, and frame. So, it's not just a single problem at Honda that needs to be solved. Why we're losing so much time, and the performance is so weak, has to do with the whole package."
In my opinion, the Japanese approach is a bit too conservative.
"Ducati is the best example. They push all technical aspects one-hundred percent. Honda is simply too well-behaved in this regard."
At HRC, they obviously failed to bring in a new, youngwe generation of innovative engineers in good time. There's no sign of the ingenuity of the glory days, like the five-cylinder RC211V from 2002 and the seamless gearbox in 2011.
Ducati has raised the bar higher every year in terms of devices, engine performance, and aerodynamics. The opponents couldn't keep up, imitating it. When the Pokémon-like wings appeared, I thought they didn't really bring any advantages.
Gigi Dall'Igna was just having fun and waiting to see if the opponents would copy all that nonsense.
"I can't disagree with you in any way. You seem like an experienced journalist who's been on the scene for some time."
Firstly, Yamaha finished second in the Constructors World Championship in 2020 and won the Riders World Championship with Quartararo in 2021, and Fabio fought against Bagnaia for the title in 2022. They also improved significantly in 2024, much faster than Honda.
And Honda didn't have a chance against Aprilia and KTM, even in the fifth year of their dry spell.
"Yes, that's true. It's, of course, somewhat sobering that the world's biggest motorcycle manufacturer has been in such a deep slump for years. And it's a fact that even one of the best motorcycle racers of all time was unable to eradicate the shortcomings at some point.
In 2024, we saw that Marc's riding performance in Ducati is still strong, and he can still hold his own, even against the young riders. It's somehow a downward spiral. I can only repeat what I've said several times.
At such a huge company as Honda, it takes a certain amount of time for certain decisions to be made. That's why it takes some time for a project like this to be pushed in the right direction again. But, I must mention that, with the former Aprilia Technical Director, Romano Albesiano, he'll be the first European to take on this position at HRC.
I know Romano very well from my one and a half years in 2015 and 2016 in the Aprilia factory team as Álvaro Bautista's teammate. He's now coming directly from another factory and will certainly bring fresh ideas with him. That's quite obvious.
We'll have to see how quickly these ideas will be implemented. Romano’s appointment is definitely a big step, because Honda has never before handed over such a high position in a technical area to an European."
To be continued ...
