Honda never saw Lorenzo-Marquez as a dream team

The 'dream team' moniker commonly used to refer to the pairing of Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo at Honda merely disguises the huge difference between three-time MotoGP champion Lorenzo's actual role and the one he had at previous team Ducati.

Lorenzo's run of form in mid-2016, when Ducati decided to try to prise him away from Yamaha, was diametrically opposite to the circumstances he found himself in this time last year - when the news of his shock switch to Honda emerged.

For Ducati, signing Lorenzo was a key target. At the time he was the current world champion, thanks to pipping Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi amid the drama of 2015. Then and now, Lorenzo is the only person to have beaten Marquez to a MotoGP title.

That made Lorenzo the most accurate measuring stick by which to gauge the true potential of the Desmosedici without the variable of the rider coming into question. Ducati's bike had moved on greatly since the arrival of Gigi Dall'Igna as team boss at the end of 2013, but the fact remained that it had only won two races since '11.

The move for Lorenzo cost Ducati around £22million (€25m) in wages to its new star over the two years of his contract (2017 and '18), plus the additional outlay of essentially putting the entire factory at his disposal.

Lorenzo's three victories during a season and half in red proved an insufficient return on the investment and the effort being put in by Ducati, and the patience of its CEO Claudio Domenicali wore out.

Honda never had the same need or desperation that drove Ducati to throw the kitchen sink at its problems

Just as the rest of the paddock was making the assumption that Lorenzo would be joining Franco Morbidelli in the new Petronas-backed satellite Yamaha outfit, Honda Racing Corporation team manager Alberto Puig moved quickly and closed a surprise deal with the #99 rider as a replacement for the outgoing Dani Pedrosa.

Putting the only two MotoGP world champions of the last seven years together under the same garage roof, on equal machinery, presented the fans with the prospect of a head-to-head battle for the ages.

It was a fantasy line-up for MotoGP fans and at the team presentation in Madrid at the end of January, Lorenzo himself coined that 'dream team' phrase to describe his new partnership with Marquez.

"I want to prove we are the 'dream team' everybody is talking about," he said.

Yet Honda never used this term itself because its initial plan was a long way from what eventually came to be.

The truth is that it never had the same need or desperation that drove Ducati to throw the kitchen sink at its problems. With Marquez - the dominant force for four of the last five seasons - on board, results were guaranteed.

Signing Lorenzo was merely the unintended consequence of a rider market roundabout that began turning even earlier than normal - Yamaha announced a new deal with Maverick Vinales in January and with Rossi at the opening round in Qatar - and the negative replies coming from the various targets initially pinpointed by HRC.

"What Honda did was to secure what they considered to be the most interesting alternative that was available at the time," Puig told Autosport.

Without wanting to go into specifics, Puig is referring to the list of candidates he was working on to replace Pedrosa. That list included the names of Johann Zarco, Joan Mir and Andrea Dovizioso, with that of Lorenzo only being added when the others opted to take alternative routes.

In the end it emerged that Zarco had signed his contract with KTM back in December 2017, while Mir opted for Suzuki over HRC and Dovizioso re-signed with Ducati as its lead rider and best bet for a championship challenge.

The surprising thing is that for once Honda had a factory seat available but nobody with the credentials to ride it, which is where Lorenzo came into the equation. After consultation with Marquez, who gave his blessing, the deal was agreed and made official at the start of June.

Last weekend, the seventh round of Lorenzo's first Honda season took place at Barcelona. On the second lap, he crashed and took Dovizioso, Rossi and Vinales down with him, capping off his worst start to a season in his MotoGP career. Lorenzo is only 15th in the championship right now, 121 points away from team-mate Marquez atop the table and he is yet to qualify higher than eighth or finish higher than 11th on a Honda.

His struggles to adapt to the RC213V took him to Honda's Japanese headquarters three weeks ago, to try to accelerate the process. At the next race at Mugello, he started to play his cards differently.

"The Honda has been developed by Marquez, for Marquez" Ducati's Paolo Ciabatti

"We have a plan to develop a bike that is more comfortable in general," said Lorenzo. "That would be good for me but also for the other Honda riders. I have already proved in the past that this is something I am good at."

One of the riders that has struggled the most with the 2019 updates is LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow, who said this year's bike is "much more critical than last year's, much more difficult".

The validity of the Brit's feedback is underlined by one notable statistic: the only time Honda has been on the podium without Marquez (who already has four wins and two second places in 2019) was when Crutchlow was on the third step in Qatar.

Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti thinks Lorenzo's injury-hit pre-season didn't help.

"I don't know exactly how Honda are managing the situation with Jorge, but what is clear is that he had some physical problems in pre-season that prevented him from completing the number of kilometres he would have liked," says Ciabatti.

"The Honda has been developed by Marquez, for Marquez. But Jorge has a lot of talent and it will come.

"What he needs is calm, although the fact that Marc is permanently fighting to win makes the situation a little uncomfortable."

Puig, meanwhile, stresses that there is no lack of effort or resources coming from the Honda factory.

"Honda is committed to getting Jorge racing at the front," he says, "which at the end of the day is what he was signed for."

The characteristics that the current world champion demands from a motorcycle are completely different to those required by Lorenzo, who has a smoother and less aggressive style.

Up to now, the majority of modifications that have been made to the Honda by its new signing have been related to the chassis, ergonomics and other components such as the brakes, given that the rules restrict any changes to the engine.

The direction HRC chooses to take next winter, when the time comes to homologate a new engine, remains to be seen.

The ideal scenario would be for Marquez to remain as competitive as he is now, while at the same time Honda creates a 2020 version of the RC213V that is more neutral.

But given the metaphorical distance between the two sides of the Honda garage, a middle ground could prove to be utopia.

Asked about the demands made to Honda by his team-mate and Lorenzo's recent trip to Japan, Marquez was quick to respond: "Honda will follow the way set by the fastest rider." And he is probably right.

The last thing Honda wants is to give its flagship rider any reason to consider a change of scenery of his own.