The excellent news for Honda coming into the 2025 MotoGP season is that issues actually can’t get any worse.
During the last 5 years it has skilled a dramatic downturn in kind that has seen it go for 3 winless campaigns since 2020 (together with final season), lose long-time title sponsor Repsol and permit this era’s greatest expertise in Marc Marquez slip away to Ducati.
The trail to Honda’s nadir is well-documented. Years of inauspicious RC213Vs being masked by six-time MotoGP champion Marquez’s expertise had been frightfully uncovered in 2020 when he needed to sit out the entire season as a result of harm. This prompted it right into a design philosophy change that solely made issues worse, with Marquez needing to interrupt away on the finish of 2023 having put his physique via hell to get match once more just for HRC to not repay this in type.
As such, little was anticipated to come back from the 2024 season. However what transpired was far worse than anybody imagined.
Honda went the improper method once more with improvement philosophy at first of 2024 that led to it as soon as extra chasing its tail to seek out the appropriate path. Whereas in the direction of the latter levels of the marketing campaign there have been some indicators of enchancment, with Johann Zarco getting the marque’s greatest results of eighth in Thailand (albeit in a moist grand prix), the numbers on the finish of the yr made for depressing studying.
Ending final within the constructors’ championship for the fourth yr in a row, Honda scored simply 75 factors – 110 fewer that it achieved in 2023, the place it was in a position to seize one thing of a fluke win with Alex Rins at COTA. At no level did HRC handle double digit scoring in any spherical final yr.
It’s greatest rider within the standings was Johann Zarco in seventeenth on 55 factors, whereas manufacturing unit duo Joan Mir and Luca Marini had been dead-last of the full-time riders within the championship on a mixed 35 factors. Marini – picked as Marquez’s substitute from a slender pool of choices – didn’t get on the scoresheet till the German GP, 9 rounds in and that was solely the results of a penalty for a rider forward.
With Mir at a 1.05 point-per-round common and Marini at 0.7 PPR, Repsol’s determination to finish a partnership that has gone robust since 1995 is definitely forgivable.
Honda, because it comes into 2025, is at all-time low.
However robust instances demand robust hearts. And Honda has clearly accepted what it has performed up until now isn’t working. One of many large causes MotoGP’s Japanese producers have slid to this point behind its European rivals has been cultural. The latter strategy is way more forthright, trial-and-error, whereas the Japanese manufacturers are way more methodical – a improvement should work earlier than it could possibly hit a monitor.
In fact, the one actual solution to know if a improvement really works is to race it. That is one thing Yamaha has been in a position to do in 2024 courtesy of former Ducati engineer Max Bartolini being put in as technical director. Honda has taken a leaf out of its ebook and signed itself a big-name European engineer to spearhead improvement in 2025.
Honda had been former KTM man Fabiano Sterlacchini as a doable possibility, however finally went with Aprilia technical director Romano Albesiano as an alternative. The Italian masterminded the RS-GP’s evolution from paddock joke to a motorcycle adequate to snare the reigning world champion Jorge Martin for this season.
The duty dealing with Albesiano at Honda is much like what he needed to face with Aprilia again in 2015, albeit with a vastly superior set of assets at his disposal within the type of the mighty Honda Racing Company. Whereas instances have been robust for too lengthy, that is the model that gained six titles in seven years with Marquez between 2013 and 2019; was champion in 2011 with Casey Stoner; beat Valentino Rossi and Yamaha in 2006 with Nicky Hayden; and obliterated the primary two years of the trendy period with Rossi in 2002 and 2003.
Honda hasn’t forgotten methods to win. And so, the assured discuss that was introduced at Honda’s 2025 launch occasion – the place it unveiled its new-look livery and Castrol title sponsor – is straightforward to know.
Romano Albesiano, Aprilia Manufacturing unit Racing, MotoGP 2024
© Gold and Goose
“I believe this positivity comes from all the brand new engineers which might be becoming a member of the undertaking, ranging from Romano but in addition different superb engineers we now have within the staff,” Luca Marini says when requested by Crash.internet why he’s sure Honda will make a step in 2025.
“I believe it is a big change that Honda by no means had prior to now. So, because of this issues are beginning to change. I already stated this final yr, however much more I can see this alteration via this winter. For positive Romano solely began engaged on this undertaking in January, so it’ll take a while to really feel his concepts and his palms on this new undertaking. However solely to share the data and the suggestions of the opposite producers, and particularly the working methodology that the Italian producers have now, will change the whole lot. We want a while, however everyone is tremendous constructive and tremendous motivated.”
Crew-mate Joan Mir echoed this, noting: “I’ve been speaking with [crew chief] Santi [Hernandez] in regards to the new upgrades we’re receiving for the time being. Seems to be like he’s fairly optimistic. So, this makes me joyful, this makes me optimistic additionally.
“I don’t count on one thing to be on high once more with, however we now have issues to attempt: we now have totally different engines, totally different chassis to attempt. If these sorts of issues will assist us and put us within the path we now have been asking for a very long time, I shall be joyful.”
Albesiano had no affect within the improvement of the 2025 bike that has already hit the Sepang circuit for pre-season testing. He’ll want time to select aside each element and create one thing in his personal picture. However concessions will assist him in that quest.
Marini believes come the second half of the yr, Honda can count on to have taken a big step ahead. That gained’t be straightforward given the extent of the competitors, however Honda has the whole lot its disposal to do this.
And that features a seemingly totally different Joan Mir.
The 2020 world champion has not had a straightforward time of issues since becoming a member of Honda in 2023 following Suzuki’s shock withdrawal from MotoGP. In an injury-hit first season on the RC213V, Mir scored 26 factors and a better of fifth on the Indian GP – although this was largely the circumstance of a more durable rear tyre carcass working within the Honda’s favour.
In 2024, it felt like Mir spent extra time in gravel traps than he did on his RC213V. He crashed a complete of 17 instances all year long and suffered 10 non-finishes in grands prix out of the 20 rounds. His greatest effort all yr was an eleventh on the Emilia Romagna GP.
At quite a few levels of his Honda tenure Mir has considered stepping away from MotoGP. A worry of failure has saved him from doing so, with 2025 marking the primary of a brand new two-year deal he’s signed with HRC.
After the Barcelona take a look at, Mir was offended at what he felt was a scarcity of recent elements from Honda and was usually the extra outspoken of the marque’s steady. That’s comprehensible, however as a MotoGP champion there’s a sure expectation that he needs to be seen because the model’s chief and maximising no matter he has beneath him – very like Fabio Quartararo has performed at Yamaha.
Joan Mir, Honda Manufacturing unit Racing, 2025 livery
© Honda Racing
When requested by Crash what he must do himself to be extra of a frontrunner in 2025 and get his outcomes up no matter the place the bike is relative to his expectations, Mir gave a refreshingly candid reply.
“Effectively, it’s not straightforward, as a result of while you come from good outcomes prior to now and being all the time one rider to [be] counted [on] for the whole lot in all of the years that I’ve been on the planet championship to being one rider who no one counts on is one thing that it’s important to cope with,” he started.
“It’s a must to settle for it. Initially it was tougher for me to have to simply accept it. However really, I do know within the scenario that we’re in I do know what we now have to do to reverse this example. No person will assume that I don’t belief within the undertaking as a result of I’m nonetheless right here, I’m nonetheless working as laborious as I do know.
“One factor that helps me lots at house is to attempt to practice as laborious as doable, attempt to be tremendous match, do the whole lot that I can to don’t have inside my thoughts [the doubts] that I might do extra. This like my remedy. So, regardless of of all this I’m actually wanting ahead to start out. I wish to reverse the scenario, I wish to begin, I wish to perceive what we are going to attempt within the take a look at, what concepts these new individuals who come to Honda may give to us, what concepts they bring about. And greater than that, what the response of Honda is in any case that work.”
Honda has at the very least gained one thing earlier than the brand new season: its new livery is definitely the cream of the crop. However it’s also the superficial illustration of a marque lastly shifting on. It’s lacklustre ultimate Repsol livery felt like a staff holding onto previous glories, the ghost of Marquez nonetheless hovering over it – and the outcomes on monitor definitely matched this.
The bodily illustration of this new chapter is already beginning to seem. The technical reset with Albesiano on the helm is already inspiring confidence in a pair of manufacturing unit riders desperately in want of it. A beefed up take a look at staff that includes Aleix Espargaro will speed up improvement in the best way its races riders have been craving for, whereas Takaaki Nakagami’s new testing function can even see him bridge the communication hole between the European and Japanese arms of the staff.
Whereas it’s laborious to counsel Honda might have a look at podium challenges within the latter levels of the season in the identical method rival Yamaha might – based mostly on present paths, anyway – there may be real motive to be eager for HRC that there’s now mild on the finish of a really darkish tunnel…
