You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
MotoGP BLOG<br />
CRISIS AVERTED?<br />
Crisis? What crisis?<br />
<strong>On</strong>e or two headlines<br />
were made to<br />
look a touch foolish<br />
come Monday night<br />
when Marc Marquez<br />
claimed parity had<br />
been restored amid<br />
the Repsol Honda<br />
ranks, and he would<br />
sleep easy in the ten<br />
days between the end<br />
of the preseason and<br />
resumption of hostilities<br />
on 8th March.<br />
Qatar provided the backdrop for<br />
a turbulent three days for HRC<br />
and its trio of riders attempting<br />
to make sense of the 2020<br />
machine they will command in<br />
what will be MotoGP’s longest<br />
ever season. The long, fast right<br />
bends that mark out the 3.8-mile<br />
Losail International Circuit were<br />
the new RC213V’s kryptonite on<br />
days one and two as a lack of<br />
front end feel (sound familiar?)<br />
dogged Honda’s boys.<br />
Come the close of Sunday’s running<br />
and it was hard to conclude<br />
anything other than things were<br />
looking dire for the factory that<br />
has emerged from each of the<br />
past three seasons with MotoGP’s<br />
elusive Triple Crown. Its<br />
riders using the latest factory<br />
trickery were 14th, 19th and 21st<br />
on the time sheets. And it didn’t<br />
end there.<br />
The elder Marquez was unable<br />
to lap the track within a second<br />
of riders he beat with one eye<br />
closed a year ago. Cal Crutchlow<br />
abandoned his media duties in<br />
favour of resting a right arm that<br />
had ballooned up to the size of<br />
pig’s thigh after a bruising crash<br />
at turn two. And class rookie Alex<br />
Marquez was sporting the kind<br />
of thousand-yard stare normally<br />
associated with returning war<br />
veterans.<br />
“Of course I’m worried,” Marc<br />
told us on Sunday. The issue<br />
stemmed from front instability<br />
and a lack of agility. “We’re pushing<br />
on entry and stressing the<br />
front tyre and the consequence<br />
is that you push the front more.”<br />
Crutchlow chipped in, saying “we<br />
can’t decelerate the bike and<br />
we can’t turn the bike with this<br />
pushing that we have on it. So,<br />
it’s essentially, you’re holding the<br />
brake a long time, you’re unable<br />
to turn the bike in the middle of<br />
the corner.”<br />
We all know one of Honda’s<br />
maxims is to provide power,<br />
believing it a requisite of its riders’<br />
jobs to do the rest. But even<br />
their technicians’ efforts seemed<br />
a touch extreme. Last year’s machine<br />
was no walk in the park, as<br />
Crutchlow and Jorge Lorenzo’s<br />
struggles demonstrated. With<br />
their comments appearing to go<br />
unheeded, management in the<br />
factory team was privately less<br />
than impressed with the fruits of<br />
HRC’s winter labours.<br />
So, the following day, when<br />
engineers were spotted wheeling<br />
one of Takaaki Nakagami’s<br />
’19-spec RC213Vs into the reigning<br />
champion’s garage, it was<br />
safe to assume drastic measures<br />
were being undertaken at a less<br />
than ideal time. Team manager<br />
Alberto Puig told a group of us<br />
they were attaching and testing<br />
parts from the ’18 machine, as
Change language