Why a difficult 2021 hasn't broken one Honda MotoGP ace's resolve

“I mean Honda has been up and down throughout history, but always it's been there. Maybe this first year is not going to be good, but second year for sure the bike is going to be there.”

Pol Espargaro doesn’t likely remember exactly what he told Autosport at the end of the 2020 season ahead of his big Honda switch, but judgement day on those comments is looming as preparations for MotoGP’s 2022 campaign get set to resume in high gear at the beginning of February.

Somewhat prophetic as it was measured, Espargaro’s words ahead of his Honda move certainly rang true about his first season in the iconic Repsol colours. He ended the year with 100 points – 35 less than he scored in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign with KTM, and equal to his haul on a difficult KTM machine the year before. One pole position at Silverstone and a career-best second at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix were the highlights of a campaign in which Espargaro was constantly facing an uphill struggle.

That was contrasted by a still-recovering Marc Marquez winning three times and ending up 42 points clear of Espargaro in the final rankings despite missing four rounds and crashing out of four others.

“I mean basically the experience in MotoGP is half of the way,” Espargaro explained at the end of last year on the eve of a Valencia finale he would never race after a heavy FP3 shunt.

“It’s super-important, and especially when you are changing bikes the level now in MotoGP is fantastic, it’s super, super high. So, you have no time to say that you are adapting, or you have no time to test, you have not so much testing. We went into the first race in Qatar not ready, actually, with a few laps in Qatar, and a few laps with the bike. So, definitely I was not ready.”

Espargaro would go on to finish eighth on his Honda debut in Qatar

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Candidness is seemingly a genetic trait of the Espargaro clan, and Pol’s brutal honesty about his first year at Honda is warranted. The COVID pandemic forced MotoGP to axe its traditional two-day post-season Jerez test in 2020, with just five days ahead of 2021 all confined to the Losail circuit in Qatar – where the opening two rounds of the campaign had been pencilled in for.

Espargaro’s form in Qatar was genuinely quite impressive, the Spaniard showing podium pace but hampered by 12th and 15th-place qualifying results. But this flattered to deceive, as the amount to be learned from a month of riding at one track inevitably limited – primarily because of the sheer amount of grip on offer as Losail was bathed in Michelin rubber.

Understanding more how to apply the throttle on the troublesome Honda, as well as some genuine improvements as HRC experimented with different chassis in the second half of the year, helped to boost Espargaro’s results

When MotoGP returned to Europe, the problems were exposed. The 2021 Honda lacked rear grip, which caused issues for the RC213V’s pilots on corner exit as well as on the way into. For Espargaro, it stopped him from opening the throttle as aggressively as he normally would, while his usual style of jamming on the rear brake on his way into corners did him more harm than good. And with his learning process jammed into 150 minutes or so of practice on constantly evolving tracks, it took him until a long way into the season before he could really understand how to ride the bike.

In that Autosport interview two years ago, Espargaro said he would be facing Marc Marquez with no fear. Once again sticking to true to his word, he felt the absence of his team-mate for the pre-season and first two races – as he recovered from the broken arm which ruled him out of 2020 – impacted Espargaro, and Honda in general, in a big way.

“We didn’t start last year in the way we would have liked, but in the end, you need to take things as they come,” he reasoned during Honda’s 2022 launch event last week. “So, we were working hard at the beginning of the year to try to improve the situation – all of us, not just me, also the satellite team and the Repsol Honda team.

Marquez and Espargaro celebrate a 1-2 at the Emilia Romagna MotoGP

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“Without Marc it was hard, without that information we needed to build up something great to do a proper year. By the end of the year, I started to feel good after the pole position, almost the podium, at Silverstone, and then the Misano races I started to grow up my self-confidence and everything started to be much better.

“Being on Marc’s side, he’s a guy that is used to riding with this low grip problems. So, he was adapting his style to this low grip and he was able to take the maximum performance on this low grip. His experience of the bike also helped him quite a lot and he adapted his style to this super good. So, for me, especially at the beginning of the year, it was super hard to know how to ride the bike in this way, to take the maximum potential on the accelerations, how to not spin too much but being fast at the same time.”

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In the second half of the year, Espargaro’s form certainly did improve. He made it into Q2 at every round barring Valencia from the Austrian GP onwards, including his stunning run to pole at Silverstone, fourth at the Emilia Romagna GP and a brace of sixths at the San Marino and Algarve GPs. Those in turn contributed to his best results on Sundays; at Silverstone he was fifth, at Misano 1 he was seventh, Misano 2 second and Algarve sixth.

Understanding more how to apply the throttle on the troublesome Honda, as well as some genuine improvements as HRC experimented with different chassis in the second half of the year, helped to boost Espargaro’s results. Taking onboard feedback from its riders across 2021, Honda’s 2022 prototypes – tested at Misano after the San Marino GP and at Jerez after the Valencia finale – were met with optimism from Espargaro, who felt many of the bike’s weak points – chiefly its lack of rear grip – had been fixed.

Espargaro testing Honda's 2022 MotoGP bike

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Keeping his feet on the ground, Espargaro is reticent to brand it a major step forward, noting “It’s no sense saying the bike is much better if we are two tenths quicker and the rest are half a second quicker”. He, like most, is also wary of the threat the ultra-fast Ducatis pose in 2022 now eight of the beasts will be let loose on track. Unsurprisingly, Espargaro has also pointed at top speed as being something Honda also needs to take a step forward with – which it is capable of, having been able to match Ducati horsepower prior to the COVID-forced development freeze for 2020 and 2021.

Espargaro knows better than most the work needed to make a bad bike good, having helped transform KTM from back-of-the-grid dwellers to race winners between 2017 and 2020. In him, Honda has a very good right-hand man for a Marquez who looks like he will be back to full fitness after his vision scare over the past three months.

Early signs for a genuine resurgence from Honda in 2022 are positive. Whether it will be enough to match the impending might of Ducati, that won’t be known for a few rounds. As far as Espargaro is concerned, there will be “no panic” if HRC starts the year behind

Brushing aside the general assumption that Honda has generally built its bikes around the six-time world champion (though there’s a definite argument to be made that it has largely avoided radical overhaul because of him) by humbly pointing out that “on the old [Honda] bikes Marc was, and is, a genius because his way of riding is the best one”, Espargaro knows that an improved bike needs an improved rider to take the best from it.

Asked if he’s done anything this winter to better himself for the new Honda, Espargaro replied: “I mean mentally no, because it’s something that even with the high pressure and bad results last year I could stay mentally healthy, which is nice. Physically, I think I trained more than I need for a MotoGP bike. Sometimes for sure you are so tired riding the bike, but I don’t think it’s my problem at the moment. Then for sure technically it’s something I discovered the way of opening the throttle, it’s important do in a different way than I was doing. With this low grip I couldn’t open as aggressive as I normally do, and also I couldn’t use the rear brake as I normally would.”

Espargaro after an off during qualifying at the Americas MotoGP

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Early signs for a genuine resurgence from Honda in 2022 are positive. Whether it will be enough to match the impending might of Ducati, that won’t be known for a few rounds. As far as Espargaro is concerned, there will be “no panic” if HRC starts the year behind.

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As he stated two years ago, Honda’s past form is enough to inspire confidence in him that things will eventually come good. And riding a bike that he has helped develop and, more crucially, he now knows how to ride, with a fully fit Marquez alongside to act as extra motivation, Espargaro can now flourish at HRC.

And, with the 2023 rider market set to be extremely volatile, he really needs to – lest he end up joining the list of other top names who failed to tame the Honda…

Pol Espargaro faces a key season at the factory Honda MotoGP team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images