Why Honda must now split with Lorenzo

The huge expectation generated by the announcement that Jorge Lorenzo was signing for Honda at the midway point of last season has turned into a nightmare in the subsequent months.

This is the case for both the team and also for the rider, who always wanted a chance to ride for what is traditionally considered to be the strongest team in MotoGP during his career.

A poor return in terms of results in the early stages of 2019 was initially justified by the perceived hangover from a series of injuries suffered by the three-time MotoGP world champion in the months prior.

But there is no viable explanation for Lorenzo's form in the last couple of races - not even the crash at Assen that left him with two fractured vertebrae and caused him to miss the races in the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic and Austria.

Lorenzo made his return at Silverstone, where he crossed the line in 14th position, a huge 56.6-seconds down on the race winner Alex Rins.

The position was the same in the next round at Misano, this time 47.2s behind Marc Marquez; at Aragon he crossed the line second-to-last in 20th, 46s behind his race-winning Honda team-mate, and last Sunday at Buriram he crossed the line 54.7s after Marquez in 18th.

It is comfortably the worst run of form by the #99 rider since Lorenzo stepped up to the premier class in 2008.

Ever since his comeback at the British Grand Prix, Lorenzo has seemed disconnected, devoid of a competitive edge, and the most worrying thing is that he is accepting a fear of crashing again as being something normal.

For any ordinary human being it would be, but the admiration we have for motorcycle racers is because they do things that are extraordinary. Listening to Lorenzo's words, it seems his only objective right now is to make it to the end of November without another accident.

The magnitude of the problem gathers further weight when you compare his stats with those of his team-mate, who has already sealed the 2019 title with four rounds to spare and rates this as his best season since stepping up to MotoGP in '13. Given that Marquez has won every championship bar one since then, that shows just how well he feels he is riding right now.

Puig's comments effectively lay down the gauntlet to Lorenzo, suggesting there is a mission ahead that needs to be accomplished

While the majority of competitors would give anything to turn around a situation that continues to go from bad to worse - to even worse - as soon as possible, Lorenzo is just counting down the days.

"It could be that things continue the way they are indefinitely, I don't know," he replied last Saturday, when asked how long he could cope with the current situation.

Lorenzo is clearly aware that this is not true. This situation cannot go on "indefinitely", while he continues to offer up the image of a rider with no ambition or fighting spirit, which is the one that has overcome him in recent weeks. Nor, in any way, shape or form, can he afford to be permanently featuring at the bottom end of the timesheets on a factory Honda.

Honda team manager Alberto Puig is maintaining a careful position when asked for his thoughts on the future of a rider whose signing last season caught the whole paddock on the backfoot.

But at the same time, the warning signs can be read between the lines of comments such as his most recent reflection on the Buriram farce: "We also hope Jorge can help us achieve the teams' and manufacturers' titles," Puig said.

This comment effectively lays down the gauntlet to Lorenzo, suggesting there is a mission ahead that needs to be accomplished.

"I am only thinking about Jorge's progression from now until the end of the season, to see what perspectives he has looking towards 2020," Puig also said a few weeks ago, suggesting that the difficulties his rider was experiencing were nothing out of the ordinary.

"We are trying to help him, doing the maximum we can and know how to, but there has to be a meeting point between the rider and the bike and he is finding this difficult," added Puig, as clear and direct as ever - just as he is with Honda's future targets, as far-fetched as they may seem for at least one side of the garage.

"The strategy [right now] is to win, win, win and win because there are four races left of the season. The best way to progress and to stay focused is to think about this objective. Marquez and Honda, mentally at least, are always trying to achieve this."

So, where does Lorenzo fit into this strategy? It is hard to imagine that a rider showing no signs of progression - on the contrary, he appears to be getting worse - can transform into a podium contender overnight on a bike in which he has no faith.

As much as the rider insists that assurances are coming from Japan that the 2020 version of the RC213V will feature the changes he has requested to make the bike less critical in its handling characteristics, it is hard to believe that any engineer worth their salt is going to drastically alter a machine that Marquez has won nine out of 15 races on and taken to second in five of the other six.

When you step back and look at the situation from Marquez's viewpoint, the fact that he is the only rider able to make the Honda work so well merely further underlines his role within the factory. It makes him nothing less than indispensable.

At the age of 32, Lorenzo is a five-time world champion - three times in MotoGP (2010, '12 and '15) - with a total of 68 victories, 69 poles and 152 podiums to his name.

He has had an outstanding career - one that only a true champion can lay claim to, as the man himself takes care to remind us all from time to time. Now, however, he is running the risk of ending a near perfect career in the most imperfect way possible.

A season like this one can be disregarded as a mistake, a blot on the copybook. But to smudge that blot onto a second page would make it difficult to erase.

Honda, one of the most important manufacturers in the world, has no plans to break the contract that joins them together.

But it is expecting some kind of gesture from Lorenzo.

That either means a change of attitude, or a submission like the one that led Johann Zarco to ask KTM to tear up the contract that also held them together until 2020.