Japanese constructors have a long history of success in MotoGP. Until a few years ago, the titles were divided between Honda and Yamaha, and Suzuki also managed to crown itself champion. However, the pandemic marked a turning point and now the Japanese are facing great difficulties behind the Europeans who dominate.
Santi Hernández has been the head of mechanics at Honda for several years and has witnessed both realities. The engineer believes that the pandemic phase, in which measures were stricter in Japan than in Europe, had an impact on the projects of Honda and Yamaha:
– I don’t know… it’s clear that the Covid-19 era affected European brands less than Japanese ones. We see that Yamaha is also suffering since then, because before Covid-19 they were always ahead. It affects how they managed the pandemic in their country, and the Europeans came out benefited.
Hernández believes that there may be more factors, but the most important thing at this moment is to focus on improvement: ‘Well, we could go into many details, differences in what some do and what others do, but we have to focus on seeing what needs to be done and try to improve‘.
