Where does Honda's new MotoGP signing sit ahead of its king's return?

If you’ve found yourself hearing the music from ‘Jaws’ lately, that’s because the news MotoGP has been waiting for since last July has finally been confirmed. Marc Marquez has been given the green light by his doctors to return to action this weekend in the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Autosport has written previously about the kind of Marquez we can expect – and MotoGP needs – upon his return, and rest assured we will be writing more about the return of king this weekend.

But Marquez’s return now casts an interesting spotlight on his new team-mate. Pol Espargaro’s move from KTM to Honda was a signing which spent all of last year generating much anticipation. And this was only heightened when it emerged during pre-season testing last month in Qatar that the six-time MotoGP podium finisher could actually ride the RC213V.

A glance at his results from the opening two rounds of the season paint a somewhat underwhelming picture if taken at face value. He was eighth in the Qatar GP, rising from 12th on the grid, and was 13th in the Doha race following two late mistakes while running comfortably inside the top 10.

Espargaro took both results pretty hard. His debut Honda result made him “angry”, while he branded 13th in the Doha GP “disgusting”. That assessment was both harsh and a bit unnecessary. But it was also telling.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The Repsol Honda image is one of greatness in MotoGP, the Japanese marque celebrating premier class titles with Mick Doohan, Alex Criville, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden, Casey Stoner and Marc Marquez in the 27 years its factory team has been sponsored by the Spanish oil giant. Espargaro is under no illusion about what he has to be doing on the bike.

“I have the feeling I’m sat on the best bike of the grid by far,” he said following the Doha GP. “Just we need to put everything together. We need a good Saturday, this is going to put us on top of the time attack list. So, starting from the first two rows, and if today we started there we would have finished on the podium for sure. I feel strong as to be world champion at the end of the year, but we need to put everything together starting with Saturday. If we improve Saturdays we can be fighting for the podium in every race.”

Qatar hasn’t been a friendly venue to Honda over the years. It has only won twice in MotoGP, the latest victory coming in 2014. Marquez came agonisingly close to wins in 2018 and 2019 when battling with Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, but as Espargaro reaffirms a gospel point about modern MotoGP: “For sure, Marc has made the difference”.

"I would like to have a guy setting a lap one second faster than me to punch my face and say 'ok, you can do that'" Pol Espargaro

No matter how difficult the RC213V has been, Marquez has still been the rider to beat and that must be a daunting benchmark to live up to as a Honda rider.

As Espargaro explained, qualifying was the bane of Honda in Qatar. In the opening round he was 1.158 seconds off the pole time in 12th, while the top RC213V was 11th-placed Takaaki Nakagami a spot ahead, some 0.949s adrift. In the Doha GP, Espargaro was 1.294s off pole having failed to escape Q1 in 15th, while stand-in team-mate Stefan Bradl was 1.1s down in 11th.

Extracting the maximum performance from a new soft slick in qualifying mode has always been an issue for Honda riders, Cal Crutchlow revealing last year that the Honda can do a quick lap straight out of the box but generally struggles to find any significant gain on that. The exception, of course, being when the Honda is in the hands of Marc Marquez.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The Doha round was a particularly troublesome weekend for Espargaro, because track conditions seemed to change with every session and the behaviour of the bike varied quite dramatically without him straying too much from his base set-up. It was an issue affecting all Honda riders and the absence of someone who can “punch my face” over a single lap was only magnifying the problem, says Espargaro.

“We are all having problems and the problem is we do not have a guy here in Honda who is making a huge difference to check and say ‘ok, what’s going on?’,” he said after qualifying for round two.

“Everyone, we are in the same lap time. I don’t know, I have spoken to the team and last year they told me in between Marc and Taka [in terms of riding] the difference was not very big. For sure Marc made the difference, but they told me that. Taka is still struggling, Bradl is also having quite a lot of problems. So, I would like to have a guy setting a lap one second faster than me to punch my face and say ‘ok, you can do that’. But at the moment we don’t have that, and we are all more or less in the same lap time.”

This lack of Honda knowledge was bound to be an issue for Espargaro given he had four days on the bike before the season started. Unfortunately, in the modern era, qualifying poorly is a real gut punch to your race hopes. And this is where the real frustration for Espargaro comes in, because if you return to his race performances and dig a little deeper you see he is clearly one of the frontrunners in terms of pace.

Qatar GP race winner Maverick Vinales’ average lap pace was 1m55.5s, while Espargaro’s 1m55.7s. In the Doha GP, the sister Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo lapped at an average pace of 1m55.3s on his way to the win, while Espargaro (having removed the two laps he ran wide at Turn 1) lapped at an average pace of 1m55.4s. In other words, in both races Espargaro displayed pace strong enough to carry him to the podium – but being forced to recover from poor qualifying results ultimately left him with just 11 points from the first two rounds.

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“On the performance, on lap time during the race it’s better than I expected and also I think Honda is very happy because on race pace we are to fight for the podium or the win here in Qatar where normally they have struggled in the past years,” he said when asked to evaluate his general performance following his first two races as a Honda rider.

“But on the result, for sure I’m not satisfied. I did two huge mistakes [in the Doha GP] which put us out of the top six, I think we could be seventh, sixth and we finished 13th. So, if you check the standings the result is disgusting, but if you check all the race – the rhythm, the overtaking from where we were starting, for sure it’s more than what I expect. So, the feeling is great. I feel good because we are fast. I have the speed. The problem is we couldn’t put everything together and that’s painful.”

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Despite the Honda’s well-documented issues in time attack mode, Espargaro fully lays onus on himself to improve rather than expecting the bike to do better. And when you consider how Honda’s other full-timers in LCR duo Nakagami and Alex Marquez fared – the former crashing in the first race and finishing 17th in the second while the latter fell out of both contests – Espargaro’s speed should be a source of comfort for HRC.

What’s clear is Honda won’t have to heap all of its expectations back on Marquez’s shoulders in its quest to reclaim its crown in 2021, as Espargaro has shown he is capable of top results on the RC213V if he can just sort out qualifying

How Marc Marquez will fare on his return this weekend in Portugal is a mystery. We’re talking about a rider who won the 2018 title with a shoulder barely staying in its socket following a pre-season training crash, and who went on to finish second in the 2013 British GP a few hours after dislocating his shoulder in a crash in warm-up. He might need the whole weekend, or he might only need three laps to get back up to speed after his extended absence.

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What’s clear is Honda won’t have to heap all of its expectations back onto the six-time MotoGP world champion’s shoulders in its quest to reclaim its crown in 2021, as Espargaro has shown he is capable of top results on the RC213V if he can just sort out qualifying.

And with the rider who has bloodied everyone’s nose for much of the past decade back where he belongs in the garage next door, Espargaro finally has the reference he’s been missing to truly flourish on the Honda.

Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Repsol Honda