Whilst the rider line-up at Team HRC may not have changed for a third season, there’s a lot of personnel changes coming. Leon Camier will depart as team manager but in his last tests with the team, he confirmed that Tom Jojic, former crew chief to the likes of Kenny Roberts Jr, Hiroshi Aoyama and Bradley Smith in MotoGP™, will be Iker Lecuona’s crew chief for next season. Jojic was seen in action for the first time during a two-day test at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, as he got used to Lecuona, who in-turn got used to the new Honda ahead of 2024. On the other side of the box, Xavi Vierge will continue to work with Gorka Segura.

“The decision was made; we felt that Tom could add a lot of experience with his background in development and engineering,” began Camier, overseeing his final tests as team boss for Honda’s factory WorldSBK effort. “It’s something we felt like we needed. Basically, I know some people that worked with Tom before and he had some really, really good references and we felt he’d be a super good fit for taking the project another step further. First impressions are really good and what we’re hoping for.”

Jojic has a sparkling CV, having achieved two Constructors’ Championships with KTM’s Moto3™ effort as well as well as a Riders’ Championship during the early, development years, whilst being a test engineer on the development test team. He was crew chief to Hiroshi Aoyama at the BQR Avintia team during the CRT era of MotoGP™, as well as in the two years before that with the Interwetten Honda outfit. Prior to that, he was part of the Kawasaki’s MotoGP™ test team in 2008, working with Olivier Jacque, famously trialling a ‘screamer’ engine although eventually opting to continue work on the 2007 engine. Prior to that, he was crew chief to Kenny Roberts Jr in the Team Roberts outfit. Prior to motorcycle racing, he was an electronics design engineer for BAR Honda’s F1 team, as well as an electronic data engineer for TWR Racing, working with Le Mans-style cars as well as F1 cars in the late 90s.

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Source: WorldSBK.com