Once the signing of Alex Rins by LCR has been made official, and while waiting for the brand with the golden wing to announce the arrivals of Joan Mir and Ai Ogura , everything seems ready for Marc Márquez to be the only driver of the brand who will not be replaced in 2023.
Apart from the statistics, more revealing than ever – Honda occupies the last place in the classification reserved for manufacturers, while Repsol Honda and LCR are only ahead of RNF and Tech3 , in the teams category–, the case that best exemplifies to what extent the position of the Tokyo manufacturer is critical is that of Espargaró.
Polyccio landed at the beginning of last year in the workshop that he had always dreamed of, and two years later he will leave with a tremendous disappointment, after going through one of the worst experiences as a MotoGP rider, at least in terms of results.
The championship has already passed its halfway point and will restart at Silverstone in ten days’ time. The youngest of the brothers from Granollers (Barcelona) occupies 17th place in the general table, with only 40 points in his locker and after having missed the last two stops on the calendar ( Germany and Holland ), as a result of the consequences that left a crash suffered at Sachsenring.
The position of the Catalan is the worst of his stage in the heavy motorcycle category, equaling that of his first exercise in KTM (2017), where he will presumably return next season although he will do so in the suit of Tech3 , the satellite team. from the manufacturer from Mattighofen.
The departure of the #44 will be combined with that of Alex Márquez, whose signing for Gresini became official a few weeks ago, and that of Takaaki Nakagami, who will almost certainly leave room for Ai Ogura, from Moto2.
Despite having only four bikes on the grid, the hustle and bustle in the two Honda workshops has been tremendous, with up to seven sticker changes in the last five years. Three of them, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow, decided to hang up their helmets and retire after their last race at HRC , even though the last two chose to prolong their careers as testers, and even reappeared in some grand prix from time to time. .
“We must improve and we must change our procedures, our way of thinking”, acknowledged Alberto Puig, HRC team manager, after the last Grand Prix, in the Netherlands.
All the voices that come out of the official training workshop already agree that the problem is the RC213V , turned into a machine that devours riders, who are unable to take it to the limit without risking too much crashing.
Among all the Honda riders, there have been 44 crashes to date, and ten of them have been suffered by Pol Espargaró, whose courage is enormous, as great as the frustration that accompanies him.
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