For two years, it's been the same story: during winter testing, the Honda showed itself to be reluctant, even brutal, in the eyes of its official drivers, then, over the course of the Grands Prix, it progressed notably to find itself at the forefront in class. of the season.
This year in particular, we saw the same scenario, even if the RC213V benefited less from the front tire change from Mugello than the Ducati.
Hey, let's talk about the Ducati which, in the opinion of those concerned, still benefits from its lead acquired in the exploitation of the unique Magneti Marelli software.
To counter this, Honda has enlisted the services of the engineer since the beginning of the year Filippo Tosi, whose career makes him one of the greatest specialists in MotoGP electronics.
As we can see, before arriving at HRC, the man spent seven years at Ducati then two years at Magneti Marelli, most of the time working on MotoGP electronics.
In fact, although discreet, its arrival at HRC in January 2017 represents a serious wildcard for the Tokyo firm, which Manuel Pecino, in the columns of the paper version of Moto sprint, does not hesitate to describe as at least as decisive a factor in the success of Marc Márquez as his talent.
This revealed secret, because no one had spoken about it before him, represents a breach in Honda's philosophy summarized by the maxim “All the answers and solutions must be found here, by our engineers”. This is not the first operation of this kind, since Honda poached, at the end of 2009, André Zugna (Manager of Engineering Division of Yamaha Motor Racing) and Christian Battaglia (Engineer of Yamaha Motor Racing, at the time more particularly attached to Jorge Lorenzo), i.e. two masterminds of the M1's electronics.
For a year, Filippo Tosi has therefore played the role of "accelerator" to make HRC staff understand all the subtleties of the Italian software, and they are not few in number judging by the Ducatis which still allow themselves today to put their enormous power to the ground while generally wearing less of their rear tire than the competition…
Honda engineers, like those of Yamaha and other brands, would have found these subtleties sooner or later, but this “little helping hand” seems to have largely contributed to the spectacular recovery of Marc Márquez during the season, and more particularly from Barcelona.
From what we saw at the last MotoGP tests in Valencia and then in Jerez, the 2018 Honda already seems very accomplished, just like the Ducati.
Elsewhere, we are still trying to extract the quintessence of this unique electronics…
