Honda MotoGP boss reveals the "only thing" HRC "never lost"

Honda’s 2024 MotoGP season saw it go without a victory or a podium in either Sprints or Grands Prix, but in the second half of the year there were signs of improvement.

Those signs were highlighted mostly by Johann Zarco of the satellite LCR team, who was able to get the RC213V into Q2 on multiple occasions and finish twice in the top 10 of a Grand Prix — first in Indonesia, then in Thailand.

Zarco’s 55-point total that he ended the season with in 2024 was only good enough for 17th in the standings, but it was still 20 points more than the combined total of the factory Honda team, whose riders — Joan Mir and Luca Marini — finished 21st and 22nd, respectively, of the 22 full-time MotoGP riders last year.

“It’s not been easy, clearly,” HRC team manager Alberto Puig admitted when speaking to MotoGP.com.

“The results are not the ones we want.

“It’s been a year that, [in the first half] of the season, we were trying many solutions, and in the second part of the year we could more or less have some idea of what can work, and not.

“We made some improvements, not as much as we would have liked, but we made some improvements and we are in constant research of how to prepare next year’s machine.

“Still we didn’t make the results we are looking for, but from an engineering point of view they are understanding more and more how to proceed, where to go, and how we have to do [it], which is important.

“But this probably takes some time to see it on paper, but the only thing we never lost was our will to come back; this is the will that drives you to keep on going, even though we are clearly behind, and this is a fact.”

The factory HRC team loses its Repsol sponsorship for 2025 after a 30-year collaboration, but its rider line-up remains the same, with Mir and Marini staying on-board for another season.

“He is already a World Champion in MotoGP,” Puig said of Mir, “so the current situation is not so comfortable for him, the bike is not at the level [to be competitive].

“He’s trying, he crashes, obviously, because when you are a champion you’re pushing, you want to have the result. But still things could not match, and we hope that he can keep his motivation up even in difficult times.

“[Marini] is very analytical,” Puig added. “He could be working for 24 hours, because he really loves this. He is really trying to give all of his information, and this is from a working point of view.

“From a human side, he’s a really nice guy, [...] he’s super-polite and respectful.”