“Honda changes the DNA of its motorcycles in 2022”

Takaaki Nakagami (Chiba, Japan, 2-9-1992) was a witness to the unfortunate collapse of Marc Márquez in the ‘warmup’ in Germany as I followed him. He made some statements on Sunday that, coming from a Japanese pilot, who is always restrained in his statements, are especially remarkable. “Marc did nothing wrong, he lost the top of the curve, he just lost the rear”, a description he completed with a strong expression in English: “He suffered a massive high side”, which translated means he was violent. fired for air

“I was riding the same motorcycle and on a couple of occasions I had a feeling that the same thing was going to happen to me; it is very close. And not only in turn 7, in turn 5, 6, 8, but also in turn 10, 11. The front end of our bike kept closing, the rear was very unstable, the bike was moving and shaking, and that is very difficult. Going into a curve, the front end doesn’t generate much grip, which makes it easy to detach. And as soon as you touch the gas in the back, there is no grip either and the rear wheel starts to spin on empty”.

“I don’t know if it’s a mechanical or electronic problem, but it’s very difficult to manage. I know, the only way out is to continue working, but the limits of our bike are there! You might consider closing your eyes and doing a lap at whatever comes your way, but you can’t go like this for an entire race. As soon as you cross that limit, you end up in the hole”, he insisted.

A week later, at Assenwe sit together Takaaki Nakagami to try to understand how to live the crisis that Honda is going through from a Japanese mentality.

He has been in MotoGP for six years, always with HRC, racing with Team LCR. How do you see the current situation at Honda?

Right now it is a very difficult time; many crashes, some riders hurt themselves… The results… Only two races in the top ten… Yes, it was a very difficult moment.

What surprised me was that no one at Honda saw the tsunami that swept them away. Didn’t you see signs that things could happen?

In 2022, we start to… (stops thinking carefully about what he’s going to say) suffer some weekends. Not in all races. As a rider, I don’t think this is a situation created in 2023 but something that has dragged on since 2022 (Note: 2022 is the time when HRC introduced a motorcycle concept that violated everything in above).

Is the 2021 bike at the limit of its development?

No no. the 2021 bike is pretty good. In some races it’s really competitive. The 2022 bike is a complete change in concept.

What has changed on the bike?

The sensations. I started in MotoGP in 2018 and every year they change the bike, they bring a new bike. But the general concept remained, only the character of the machine changed. The engine came with more torque, with the power set elsewhere… The chassis, the feeling of the front and rear train, on the other hand, was preserved. The 2022 bike was completely different on every level… The chassis, the geometry, the feel of the front end… That bike completely lost the Honda DNA, which forced me to change the riding style that I built it for five seasons.

Need to relearn how to ride your motorcycle?

Yes, actually yes. The 2022 bike is very different so I have to train again after riding in a certain way since I came to MotoGP. In 2018 and then in 2019, 2020 and 2021 the character of the bike became one, but suddenly everything changed: the rear grip, the sensations of the front end… everything became different. I remember it was a big surprise. I tried it for the first time in Jerez after the last GP of 2021. On the first lap it was…”oh, this is a completely different bike”. The first impression was not negative, in fact, I have to admit that I liked that the bike was different from the ones we had ridden before. But when we started the ’22 season.

The biggest problem is that we can’t get all the experience we’ve accumulated over the years. Before, when we got lost in the bike set-up at the weekend, we used the data we gathered and it helped us get back on track, but in 2022 it’s impossible. We had to find the solution ourselves both weekends. It is difficult”.

A situation that led the engineer responsible for the MotoGP project to give each rider free rein to build their bike independently, which is a fast track to total confusion.

Yes, the four drivers have different chassis and have followed different development strategies. Each crew chief applied different ideas. We can’t copy, we can’t share data, even ideas because each of the four has their own.