Repsol Honda riders Casey...
Repsol Honda riders Casey Stoner (left) and Dani Pedrosa (right), with HRC Executive Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto (center) during the Repsol Honda presentation prior to the Sepang MotoGP test.
SEPANG, MALAYSIA, JAN 30 – HRC Executive Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto is sympathetic with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, who’s asked the three remaining factories for technical regulations that will even the playing field between the CRT motorcycles and factory prototypes in 2013, while making racing more affordable. But if, as some believe, Ezpeleta wants a CRT-only grid, you can count Honda out.
“Only CRT, Honda is not interested. Zero interest,” Nakamoto said at the 2012 Repsol Honda team launch on the eve of the three-day Sepang MotoGP test in Malaysia.
" At the same time it’s very difficult to find a good rider for the CRT machine. I’d like to discuss this area as well.
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Nakamoto's concern with the...
Nakamoto's concern with the CRT concept isn't just the bikes; he's also concerned about the quality of the riders on those teams.
Nakamoto met with Ezpeleta late last year to discuss the future of the premier class of road racing. He also met with Ducati Corse CEO Claudio Domenicali. Nothing was decided at the meetings, with Ezpeleta giving Honda, Ducati, and Yamaha a May deadline to provide a set of technical rules that would restrict the factory prototypes, and close the gap between the haves and have-nots starting in 2013.
“The world economic situation, we are facing a very bad situation, not only for Carmelo, also we as a manufacturer are the same,” Nakamoto said. “We at Honda are more than happy to discuss about this. With Carmelo, we at Honda also are worried about MotoGP for the future. Today, also we had an MSMA (Motorsports Manufacturers Association) meeting concerning this matter. Technically, we can start to make some suggestions to Carmelo, and also from the sporting point of view we have to discuss as well.”
The concern for Nakamoto and his riders is the quality of the CRT rider. Many of the riders on the slower motorcycles have little or no MotoGP experience, which is as big a problem as the performance differences, Nakamoto said.
“The concept of CRT, I think it’s OK,” he said. “But Valencia test the lap time difference was too much. We also think about to make a gap closer.” Nakamoto said that Honda test rider Kousuke Akiyoshi lapped the Suzuka Circuit with very similar times on the Honda CBR1000RR 8-Hour machine, which is an accurate measuring stick for the CRT machines, and the RC212V; the difference was about a second. But at the end-of-season Valencia test, Nakamoto said the difference was about seven seconds from pace-setter Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) to the slowest rider. “We must think about this area. I don’t think this seven seconds at Valencia is only the machine. At the same time it’s very difficult to find a good rider for the CRT machine. I’d like to discuss this area as well.
“Seven seconds lap times difference, to close this gap is very difficult if only you use technical regulations or something. I think the concept itself is OK. We at Honda have to help something more. This is my understanding.”
Asked for his opinion, World Champion Casey Stoner said, “I don’t know yet. We’ll see. I mean, it wasn’t too clever in Valencia. There’s people, I don’t know if they were cruising around or if they were riding as fast as they could. But you’d come up on them so quickly and it was worse than riding up against a Moto2 bike. It was a little bit scary and there’s going to be a few moments this year where the differences between the two bikes are going to become hugely evident. It could become a little bit dangerous sometimes, so we will see how things go.”