Ducati has been the dominant force in MotoGP and Honda, on the other hand, has been the manufacturer that has fallen short of expectations. Marc Marquez’s injury was fundamental in this delay, as Lucio Cecchinello had mentioned, and since 2022 the scenario has become even denser, for the worse.
The head of LCR, Honda’s satellite team, mentioned that Marquez’s injury led the manufacturer to stop developing the bike conveniently, as if «waiting» for the rider, but his long absence complicated everything, while the competition did not stop evolving.
And that was precisely what the manager explained, in words to GPOne, recalling the differences in the bike that the brand tried to operate, partially successfully: ‘In 2022 Honda came with a completely new design. The bike was actually completely different, so different that we had to understand it. From there came the difficulty of having to chase the gap to rival manufacturers, which meanwhile continued to grow.’
Despite the evolution, the competition and especially Ducati, excelled and put Honda (and not only) in trouble: ‘We improved the bike from 2022 to 2023, but the others always continued to raise the bar. If you look at the lap times of the Ducati between 2022 and 2024, it broke all records, so it put us in trouble, that’s my main conclusion.’