The impossible problem Honda faces with its 2021 MotoGP bike

Take a glance at the current world championship standings ahead of the French Grand Prix and you’ll see a sight that should utterly delight Aprilia’s PR department. After four races in 2021, Honda is second from last in the MotoGP constructors’ table, two points behind Aprilia – its points haul basically a one-man effort courtesy of an in-form Aleix Espargaro.

What does this tell us about the pecking order? Well, after four-successive top 10 finishes so far, Aprilia has genuinely brought a package that – with a few more tweaks – can start to knock on the door of the podium. But does Aprilia really have a better motorcycle than Honda?

The 2020 season signalled Honda’s first ever since it returned to the premier class full-time in 1982 that it didn’t win a grand prix. This was largely circumstantial, however. Six-time world champion Marc Marquez missed the campaign through injury. Its de facto back-up Cal Crutchlow spent the year nursing various injuries. Alex Marquez was a rookie and Takaaki Nakagami was on a year-old bike showing only flashes of podium potential.

Marc Marquez’s absence forced HRC to work more on an RC213V that didn’t require the magic touch of its golden child to extract form out of it, with the younger Marquez brother reaping the confidence sewn from tweaks to the bike mid-season to score back-to-back seconds in France and Aragon.

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And after a strong – albeit short – pre-season test phase in Qatar, the work Honda had put in over the 2020 season to make the bike a trifle more friendly looked like it had stuck as Pol Espargaro was genuinely impressive as he began his adaptation from the KTM to the RC213V.

But no Honda rider has looked consistently capable of reaching the podium so far in 2021.

Takaaki Nakagami, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Before Nakagami’s fourth place at Jerez, coming just eight tenths shy of third, the best a Honda rider had managed this season was sixth in Portugal – and that was from Marc Marquez, on his comeback grand prix following nine months on the sidelines.

The scorecard for the other Honda riders after four races looks like this: three DNFs and an eighth for Alex Marquez; a DNF, 17th, 10th and fourth for Nakagami; eighth, 13th, DNF and 10th for Espargaro. And in qualifying, only Marc Marquez and Nakagami have managed to put their RC213Vs anywhere inside the top 10 on the grid.

"The negative point is that we, as Honda HRC, understand that we are facing some issues with the bike,” Honda boss Alberto Puig said after the Spanish GP. "But we have been able to already recognise them. We are trying our best, we are bringing new parts soon and we are willing, and already working very hard, to give our best to the riders for the next races.”

"I think we’re going too much individually and not as a group. This in the end is hurting the group and that is not good" Pol Espargaro

That in itself is an interesting change of tune from Puig, who spent most of last year batting away suggestions Marc Marquez had been flattering the bike in recent years.

The Honda’s struggles to extract performance from soft rubber in time attack mode is a well-documented issue and one that still persists, as evidenced by HRC’s qualifying form this season. The critical front-end of the RC213V also looks to be alive and well, numerous moments on the front-end for Marquez – including a nasty off at Jerez’s Turn 7 during the Spanish GP weekend – highlighting the issue.

There’s always been a sense around Honda that what it always needed was a fully fit Marquez back in the saddle to point out the bike’s weaknesses – but most of all, to ride around them. With his arm a bit stronger than it was in Portugal, Marquez was able to analyse the Honda’s shortcomings at Jerez and was able to pinpoint where this RC213V lacks compared to the one he last rode in July of 2020.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“I had the opportunity to follow Stefan [Bradl], to follow Pol and also to follow Johann [Zarco] for a few laps,” Marquez said when asked by Autosport where he felt the 2021 Honda was weaker over its predecessor. “And where we are losing more is mid-exit corner. So, it’s where normally if you want to ride fast and consistent, it’s where you need to be strong and it’s where we are losing more. So, we need to understand why.”

Understanding the Honda’s front-end has been one of the key challenges of Espargaro’s season so far, not helped by the lack of a pre-season thanks to COVID-19. He hoped Jerez would mark the true start to his season owing to the consistency of track conditions across the weekend. But he ended it more frustrated than he began, beaten by his still under-par team-mate in 10th.

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Honda had an extensive development programme for Monday’s post-race Jerez test, but the first cracks in Espargaro’s resolve at his current situation appeared as he suggested HRC’s plans were at odds with what he really needed to be doing. Given the amount of development work he did on the RC16 for KTM between 2017 and 2020, Espargaro has some reasonable justification to question HRC’s testing methods.

“I’m an employee of Honda and I’m going to do what they want me to try,” he said, somewhat sharply.

He later added: “The problem I have now, I don’t know If I’m good, if I’m bad, if it’s the bike or the package I’m using. Or it is my riding style? I don’t know what’s going on and I’m a little bit confused because it’s the same confusion in the factory at the moment in the package, in the style.

“And for me, I’m new, I have this confusion because I haven’t been trying a lot things. They work so big, but I’m so small at the moment. My knowledge is zero. I have the feeling they are working big, but because my knowledge is zero I cannot help them. They cannot help me, and I cannot check anything to try and help myself. Because we’re not going one way.”

Honda’s mammoth testing programme at Jerez included five different aerodynamic packages, as well as various chassis evaluations and many other things Honda’s runners kept to themselves. This followed on from a race weekend in which the packages each rider was using varied a lot – Nakagami’s most of all, with the Japanese rider electing to run the 2020 chassis instead.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Enjoying Honda’s strongest weekend to date in 2021 with fifth in qualifying and a narrow podium miss in fourth, Nakagami admitted he wasn’t settled on running the old chassis – which gave him more rear confidence - for the foreseeable future as the 2021 version was apparently better in terms of handling. Yet that seems somewhat out of line with his own results before Jerez and those of his counterparts.

For Espargaro, this is ultimately the biggest problem in his mind. Every Honda rider appears to be working in singular fashion instead of for the greater good. The high priest of the Temple of Syrinx in Rush’s epic 1976 concept suite 2112 – essentially about the folly of a blinkered organisation believing only its ways are the best – would be most upset with this.

“I think we’re going too much individually and not as a group,” Espargaro complained. “This in the end is hurting the group and that is not good.”

Honda’s extensive testing programme went someway to showing its open-mindedness in trying to solve the problem. Undoubtedly, though, as soon as Marc Marquez is able to properly muscle the bike and steer development, HRC will go in whatever direction he thinks it should

Clunky Rush reference aside, Espargaro’s dismay at the situation is understandable. Given his lack of experience on the Honda, he needs some sort of common base set-up to build on and adapt at race weekends. But this is where the problem lies, because ultimately Honda has to continue to build a bike that Marc Marquez can ride in a manner that allows him to do what made him almost untouchable prior to 2020.

Unsurprisingly, Marquez said as such when Espargaro’s complaints about the bike at Jerez – branding it “a mess” in the race – were put to him.

“It’s true that we are losing a lot in some areas where we need to work hard, we are not in the best situation,” said Marquez. “But in our side of the box and together with Honda… Honda is working a lot and is bringing a lot of new items. But the most important things is to not lose the way on a rider’s feeling and the team.

“And this is where we need to manage well. Now I’m in a position to start to try things and we will start to see what they did last year because I was not here, what is going on, what we have, what we had in the past and try to find the balance because now I feel like I can ride the bike how I want but I don’t have my balance, my set-ups. So now it’s time to work, but step by step to not lose the way.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Honda’s current roster is incredibly capable. Marc Marquez, once back up to full-fitness, is a sure thing; Espargaro proved he could be a top rider with KTM, while Alex Marquez has proved he can run at the front on the bike before and Nakagami is strong when he is on-form. But Marc’s injury last year showed ultimately that he is human and it’s not guaranteed that he will continue to dominate for years to come.

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So, Honda has no choice but to make its bike more suitable to all of its riders going forwards. As a happier Espargaro pointed out following the Jerez test, “we need to be open-minded, to just keep trying things, be open not to be scared of the mistakes and problems that may come.”

Honda’s extensive testing programme went someway to showing its open-mindedness in trying to solve the problem. Undoubtedly, though, as soon as Marc Marquez is able to properly muscle the bike and steer development, HRC will go in whatever direction he thinks it should.

And herein lies the eternal struggle for Honda. It knows it has to make an easier bike, but it can’t do so in a way that jeopardises Marquez’s feeling on it – regardless of where it may find itself should something like 2020 ever happen again.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images