“Very interesting, very important”: Joan Mir, Luca Marini react to Honda signing Albesiano

Repsol Honda riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini welcomed HRC’s bold move in signing Aprilia’s Romano Albesiano as its new MotoGP technical director from 2025.

Albesiano will be the first non-Japanese to hold such a senior design position at HRC.

Aprilia’s technical director since 2013, when Gigi Dall’Igna was poached by Ducati, Albesiano has overseen the RS-GP’s rise from the back of the MotoGP grid to poles, podiums and race wins.

Mir, the 2020 world champion for Suzuki, has only one top ten GP finish since joining Honda at the start of last year. The Spaniard hopes the approach and techniques used by Albesiano to transform Aprilia’s fortunes can now be adapted to the RC213V.

“I think that movement is very interesting and very important,” Mir said of the Albesiano news. “Also, in the position he will be, I think it’s very good that HRC take this solution and this improvement.

“Because to have a person like him, with all the experience that he has, being probably five years ago in the same situation that we are at the moment – not really competitive – he knows exactly what he’s done with the Aprilia and the big evolution they followed.

“Aprilia is also a very small factory compared to HRC so the time reaction they have is a lot faster. So it is something they will explain to HRC and probably that we will improve also.

“And to exploit a bit more the capacity of the technicians in Japan. The Japanese staff are very good, but we just need to close a little bit this time reaction, from one evolution to the other.

“A lot of the time, we are asking for one thing and once it arrives, it’s a small thing. This is not probably the way to be cutting a bit the distance to the top guys.”

Albesiano will replace Ken Kawauchi, whom Mir previously worked with at Suzuki. Kawauchi is expected to join the Honda MotoGP test team.

“Inside HRC they are moving people around to try to get the best quality from each one. And they probably see in Ken, in terms of the evolution of the bike, being in that position will be very helpful,” Mir said.

Marini: Aprilia has ‘best grip in the world’ from 60 to 40 degrees

With Kawauchi still very much involved in the MotoGP project, team-mate Luca Marini highlighted that Albesiano will further strengthen the current engineering team.

“I think that Romano will bring us a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge,” said Marini, who joined Repsol Honda at the start of this season following Marc Marquez’s exit.

“In Aprilia they made a fantastic job in these last years and I'm super happy for this news. We will try to treat him in the best way from the beginning, try to be a family with all the Japanese guys, I think he will be a great support for us.”

“We will also keep the same people, same engineers,” Marini added. “I think that Romano will be an ‘add’, one more person that can share more ideas, information and try to work all together with the same goal.

“I don't think that it will change all the philosophy of Honda, of all the years. I think that we are super good in many things and we will try to improve our strongest points because in some things the bike is incredible and the Japanese made a fantastic job.

“So we just need a little bit more maybe coordination and communication sometimes. Try to be more direct between what's happening in the garage and Japan. And try to have everybody together speaking a lot.

“But I think that since my arrival, from the beginning of the season, everything is changing a lot in a good way and I'm super positive for this.”

Marini estimates that Honda has almost halved the performance deficit to Ducati, but still has a long way to go.

“We started 2 seconds [a lap] from Ducati, now we are getting closer to 1 second, but it's still not enough,” Marini said.

“Everybody has the same target, try to catch victory again as soon as possible. We are doing a good job with a good effort from everybody and I think that next year everything will be better.”

Marini picked out edge grip under acceleration as one area he hopes Albesiano can influence on the RC213V.

“I think that the strongest point of Aprilia this season is the edge grip, the first pick-up moment when you lift the bike from 60 to 40 degrees [on corner exit],” he explained.

“That area Aprilia has the best grip in the grid. So if he will help us to catch that, to understand that, it will be a big improvement for us.”

Albesiano will ‘oversee HRC’s MotoGP project and the continued development of the Honda RC213V’ from ‘the start of 2025’ suggesting his first track appearance for Honda is likely to be January’s Sepang Shakedown test.