Editor’s Blog - What has happened to Honda?

Marc Marquez at Mugello 2023.

First of all, let’s just state the obvious. We are not as smart as those at Honda. There are plenty of very clever designers, engineers and riders that are currently unable to answer the question currently being posed at the top of this page. This article can be best described as an informed rant.

But the question is completely valid. What has happened to Honda?

MotoGP brought back 1,000cc bikes in 2012 and in the years that followed, Marc Marquez bagged six world titles on the orange machine - and he did so in style, too. It was simply amazing to watch Marc lean the bike over to seemingly impossible angles - to the point where Alpinestars even had to redesign their suits to include more fortified elbow sliders.

It seemed like the Spaniard was unbeatable, but as we moved towards a new decade, some very serious problems seemed to emerge. Firstly, Marquez seems to have taken Ricky Bobby a little bit too seriously and embraced the philosophy of “If you aint first, you’re last”. A combination of some questionable and downright unsportsmanlike moves, combined with unrivalled recklessness with his own bike (and body, too) finally started to catch up with him. The injuries mounted up to the point where he was only physically capable of riding a season’s worth of races in three years.

While he was sitting out all those races having surgery and working his way back to fitness, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for the other riders to develop the bike. That’s not to say that those riders did a bad job. Rather, it seems that Honda were so convinced by their multiple-time world champion’s ability that they simply decided that Marc’s bike was Marc’s bike, and they wouldn’t hear any different. Not even his brother, Alex Marquez, was able to get the most out of it.

Meanwhile, teams like Ducati have completely changed how they develop their bikes and have used their stable of riders to really develop their packages.

The problem for Honda was that they had a bike that only Marc Marquez was able to ride, but he was out of his leathers and sitting on the sidelines.

It’s similar to Ducati in the 800cc era. Casey Stoner was the only one capable of dragging performance out of the Desmosedici. The only difference is that the Ducati wasn’t really developed around Stoner, it’s just that he was that good.

The Honda was developed around Marquez, but after three years of not having him riding consistently, Honda just doesn’t know how to give him the bike that he needs - and they seem unwilling to make it more rideable for others in their stable.

While Honda are understandably keen to hang on to Marquez as he’s a proven winner - and he seems their best bet to win races in the short term - it may be time to let him go. It’ll be a difficult few years until they're conpeting at the top again, but look what happened when Ducati stopped relying on the rider and went back to the drawing board. Rossi couldn't win on it, Hayden couldn't win on it. Lorenzo and Dovi only managed a few wins.

When you have hall of famers struggling to get performance out your machine - something needs to change.

Marquez is a hall of famer, but he’s become inconsistent. It’s not necessarily his fault, injuries happen. But it’s certainly Honda’s fault for becoming too reliant on him. It’s time to cut ties and prepare for a few years of hard development from the ground up.