The interview conducted by our friends Neil Morrison and Peter McLaren for the British site crash.net is very interesting, since Takeo Yokoyama, Technical Director of HRC, undoubtedly in the euphoria of the 8th world title of the spearhead of the Tokyo firm, recognizes what everyone has been seeing for a while: only Marc Márquez manages to exploit the RC213V. But the new fact revealed by the Japanese official is that this situation was planned…
When the journalists of crash.net
ask Takeo Yokoyama If the use of a more powerful engine in 2019 had repercussions on Marc Márquez's driving style, the HRC man responds: “ Yes exactly. Honestly, his riding style has changed a lot. In the winter, what we tried to do was we knew we had the best driver in the world, and so we gave him power. Because if you don't have the power in the middle of the straight, you can't do anything. Even the best pilot in the world can't do anything. So this is the point we tried to improve. So we focused in the winter on giving it as much power as possible, knowing there would be other problems. But we decided, OK, the problems are going to come, but again, he's the better driver, so maybe he can get through this. »
A risky bet, motivated in part by the pride of Honda which is above all an engine manufacturer and which could no longer bear to see the Ducati ridiculing them in this area...
Takeo Yokoyama Explain : " Also, we're Honda Motor Company, and we can't stay behind other manufacturers in terms of engine power on the straight and in acceleration, that sort of thing. So we decided to focus on this issue over the past winter and see what happened. Immediately, Marc understood that the characteristics of the bike had changed, and immediately, he changed his riding style. He said many times that if he has a good engine, he doesn't need to attack under braking, attack in the corners, and he could save the tire for when he needs it, and things like that. So he's very intelligent and he immediately understood the philosophy of this year's bike. So in the end, it was really good for him. I mean, it's fantastic to have such an intelligent rider who immediately understands the concept of the bike and adapts his riding style to get the most out of this bike. It was really fantastic. »
The speed of adaptation of Marc Márquez at the start of the season, while he was still injured in his left shoulder, continues to impress Takeo Yokoyama : “When he started the season, he already understood very well, and it was really incredible. Yes, every day I have surprises, surprises, surprises. In fact, this is one of the reasons why we cannot stop working in the motorcycle industry, in motorsport. Because as engineers we plan something, then we make something, then suddenly someone from another planet or whatever comes along and jumps on this motorcycle and does something we didn't expect . Then we realized, OK, maybe a human being can do it, if he's a human being! »
As for the other drivers… they will have to wait until 2020!
“Well, like I said, I knew that this year's bike would be a little more difficult than last year's, because our goal was to get the most power out of the engine, because as I ' said, we knew we had Marc Márquez who could handle any difficult aspect of the bike best. So we decided to go ahead and, as we expected, he did very well, better than expected. But we also knew that for the other drivers, it might be a little more complicated. Obviously for next year we're going to at least try to get back what we lost from last year's bike to this year's bike, and that's our goal. So this year's bike was a bit focused, but hopefully for next year the bike will be a bit easier to handle for all the Honda riders. »
Good news for Jorge Lorenzo!
