Luca Marini: Honda MotoGP team "doing great things", "direction is very good"
“From the inside, it’s a different feeling”
Luca Marini believes Honda is “doing great things” with the development of its MotoGP bike now and the “direction is very good”.
The 2024 season has been tough for Honda, with the Japanese marque scoring just 56 points in the manufacturers’ standings as of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
Across its stable of four riders, an RC213V has seen the top 10 on a Sunday just one, courtesy of Johann Zarco at the Indonesian GP when he finished ninth.
Marini, who stepped over from the VR46 Ducati squad to replace Gresini-bound Marc Marquez for 2024, is last of the Honda runners in 23rd in the standings on just seven points with a best result of 12th at the San Marino round.
However, recent upgrades to the bike at Misano have given Honda a boost, with Zarco getting into Q2 in two of the last three events.
And while the results sheets may not make for pretty reading, Marini says his own feelings are far more positive.
“From the inside, it’s different the feeling,” Marini told the official MotoGP podcast.
“I know at the end of Sunday night, everybody always looks at the results and you always see yourself in the back, in not a fantastic area.
“But from the inside, everything is different and I’ve felt a lot of improvements since the beginning of the season.
“All the engineers are doing a great job, I’m feeling a lot the support from them and we are doing great things and reaching a good level.
“The direction is very good, but still we need time because we are competing in the most difficult category in the world in the motorcycle world and competing with fantastic manufacturers.
“But we are Honda and we will come back to the victory.”
Going from being a satellite rider to factory one has brought with it a raft of new challenges for Marini in 2024, chief among which being how he communicates with Honda’s Japanese engineers.
“I think that first of all the communication between European and Japanese is a little bit different,” he notes.
“With Japanese, you have to be careful with your words and try to speak slowly.
“Sometimes I speak too quickly and then maybe they lose something.
“So this was also part of my personal growth at the start of the season, trying to understand how to communicate in the best way with them because everybody inside of the team with more experience than me told me this was one important thing to learn as soon as possible.
“Now I’m feeling great talking with them and trying to explain everything in a clear way as I felt it on the bike.
“So, just exactly the feelings I have, then also sometimes after the practice my personal opinions about new things and things we can improve for the future, trying to make like a priority list.
“I saw this was working very well and gave us a good direction for the development of the bike during the season.”
