Enjoying summer holidays, the 2023 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship’s five-week break between races is arguably one of the busiest, particularly for the ever-present rumour mill. However, Team HRC have had a busy schedule too, what with the Suzuka 8 Hours event in Japan – one of Honda’s most important races – and an upcoming test at MotorLand Aragon. Meanwhile, in action at Silverstone and in place of the injured Alex Rins in MotoGP™, Iker Lecuona has also had additional duties. From the opening eight rounds, highs and lows have been around the Honda camp, and we caught up with team manager Leon Camier to talk about the year.
“WE’VE MADE A STEP, BUT SO HAS EVERYBODY ELSE” – progress, but from all
“To be honest, I’d say it’s been quite a difficult season,” said Leon Camier, never one to call a spade an earth-digging implement. “We analysed the results very well, and our performance, lap times and everyone else’s. We’ve made a step, but so has everybody else. There seems to be a couple of extra riders in the top six group that makes it more difficult. Results-wise, it looks quite bad on paper and for sure, we’re not happy in this position and our goal isn’t to be here; it’s to be fighting for Championships and wins week-in, week-out. We have a lot of work to do, but this is a process too. We have to understand, keep working and we have to keep working as hard as we can.”
Asked directly ‘what’s missing’, Camier said that all aspects of the bike need to improve: “That’s a good question! We understand the direction we’d like to go but it’s a step-by-step process. Japan’s working hard behind the scenes but we need time. We need to keep chipping away and working on our weak points; there’s not one weak point, there are several that we need to work on across all areas of the bike. Hopefully at the test at Aragon, we’ll have some items to evaluate and then we’ll work for 2024 as well.”
So far in eight rounds, one podium by Xavi Vierge at Mandalika has been achieved, the first rostrum for the #97. He’s the top rider in the Championship too, holding on to P10 overall and just 16 points from the Kawasaki of Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK). As for Iker Lecuona, the team’s star rider in 2022, it’s been something of a horror show. A disaster at Mandalika and Assen came after a solid start at Phillip Island. A bounce back in form came in Barcelona when he took a best of fourth in the Superpole Race, whilst he was out injured at Misano after a Superpole Race crash with Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team). Donington Park and Imola were both difficult, although he did return Honda to the top ten in the latter’s Race 2, whilst it was a top five at Most in Race 1’s tricky conditions.
“WE’LL HAVE SOME NEW PARTS TO TEST” – can Honda get back in their top six target?
Discussing the team’s aims and ambitions for the remainder of the season, the top six is the target, whilst importance was stressed on the Aragon test on the 29th and 30th August: “We’d like to be back inside the top six consistently this year, that’d be a good achievement from where we are now. As I said, we’ll have some parts to test at Aragon that will hopefully be used at the end of the year. So, let’s see what happens; when Japan brings the parts, hopefully we make progress and we’ll go from there. It’s important that we make a step from there until the end of the year. Also, we know that these tracks that we’ve been at haven’t been ideal for us, they’re weak tracks for us at the minute. We have to take this into consideration, but we need to be fast at every track, it’s as simple as that.
“The parts that we bring now will determine what we bring for 2024. Each thing we bring, it changes again what we need from other parts of the bike. Each area of the bike, we need to improve, we’re working on this and we understand this but it’s one step at a time; you can’t just put three things on a bike and expect it to work.”
“HOPEFULLY, WE’LL HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT SOON” – 2024’s plans nearing
Finally, a coy Camier didn’t reveal too much about the rider line-up for 2024, saying: “Nothing at the minute but hopefully, we’ll have an announcement soon. I don’t have anymore details at the minute.” When probed further and with the suggestion that we could expect breaking news in the summer break, Camier’s one-word “possibly” was as much as he was willing to give away.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com