Thanks to the delays to the start of the 2020 MotoGP championship, there were plenty of interesting stories and signings taking place as teams looked forward to the following season. Ducati attempted to nab a number of riders from other factories; Suzuki reaffirmed their Spanish duo of Mir and Rins; Yamaha finally shuffled Rossi out of their factory line-up to make room for the sensational Quartararo; and Honda surprised everyone by signing Marc Marquez on for a four year contract with their factory Repsol team. Incredibly, this wasn’t even the biggest surprise to come from Honda’s 2021 contracts, as a bombshell announcement dropped before the 2020 season could even begin: Pol Espargaro would ride with Repsol for 2021 and 2022, replacing the then-rookie Alex Marquez.
This is Pol’s third manufacturer he has ridden for since joining the premier class in 2014. For his first few seasons he rode with the Tech3 Yamaha squad, serving under Herve Poncharal in one of the longest-standing satellite squads in MotoGP history alongside British rider Bradley Smith. He found moderate success with the team, but struggled to master the silky-smooth riding style required to take podiums on a Yamaha, and in 2017 he became one of the first riders to race with the new KTM factory. Here, he doubled as a competitor and test rider, helping the team come from a bike that couldn’t grace the top ten on a good day to a regular finisher in the top eight, and in 2020 the fruits of his labour blossomed in the form of KTM’s first three wins in the premier class. Unfortunately for Pol, none of those victories were for him, and so he heads into the Honda squad with six podiums and no wins to his name.
Which raises an important question: will he perform well on the Honda? The Repsol Honda team has seen the most success of any single MotoGP squad in history, and sports the names of some of the sports all-time greats and champions. However, recent seasons have shown the machine becoming increasingly difficult to ride as the factory focus all their efforts on creating a bike suited to Marc Marquez’s needs. This backfired majorly in 2020, as Marc’s absence led to Honda’s worst season in memory as all four of their riders struggled to perform, but the writing was already on the wall with the likes of Jorge Lorenzo being completely unable to master the bike.
The current Honda model is a bike built for power, at the request of Marquez. He found the bike to be totally embarrassed in raw horsepower by the Ducatis during his 2017 showdown with Dovizioso, and so development shifted gears to give him the drive he needed to contest at tracks like Austria and Misano. The main sacrifice has been corner speed; the bike can still turn on a dime as it has always been able to, but it now lacks the ability to carry full momentum through those corners. Handling has also become a regular concern, though it appeared to be solved somewhat over the course of the 2020 campaign. All told, the current Honda strikes a balance of being somewhere between the all-grunt, horsepower-driven Ducati and the smooth, all-rounder Suzuki.
Which brings us back to Espargaro. The former Moto2 world champion has big boots to fill in this factory position, but the Honda may actually be a bike that is well suited to his riding style. Espargaro is a strong rider who likes to wrestle his bike into submission, forcing it to adapt to his needs rather than moulding his riding style around the motorcycle underneath him. This is why he was able to get so much more out of the KTM than many others; his aggressive style allowed him to get better results even when the bike couldn’t match its competitors. This style of riding should allow him to quickly adapt to the Honda and push it to the high level of competition we have come to expect from a Repsol rider.
Another important factor to his potential is his relationship with Marc Marquez. Newer followers of the sport may not remember this, but Pol and Marc were fierce rivals in the Moto2 class, going toe-to-toe for the 2012 title, and Pol became intimately familiar with Marquez’ riding style as they duelled over many races. This not only means that Pol will come into the Honda squad with a better understanding of the man they built their bike around, but also provides him with more drive than others. He wants to be the man to finally take down Marc Marquez, and he has chosen to level the playing field by giving them both the same weapon to use on track.
Finally, their is Pol’s love of the Repsol team. Espargaro has spoken to numerous media outlets in the time since the 2021 season ended, and his message has been the same for all of them: riding for Repsol Honda is a childhood dream of his that is finally being fulfilled. He has always wanted to ride for this historic squad, and with a bike that he truly loves underneath him, it should spark a new level of competitiveness from him and help push him to finally fight for a MotoGP championship. The KTM was a bike that he helped create, and that made him strong, but this is the kind of dream position that a rider can only fantasize about, and it should motivate him more than any bike he’s ridden before it.
So, will Pol Espargaro be competitive when he rides with Repsol Honda? My answer is a cautiously optimistic one. Pol is a driven man who has enough experience under his belt to push for big results, and he definitely has the skills necessary to ride a Honda, but their have been others that have struggled before him. Honda will need to help him reach the best possible results, and skew away from their sole focus of helping Marc Marquez win world titles, but 2020 was a big wakeup call for them in that department. Overall, the only way we can know for sure will be when he slings a leg over the Honda for the first time, but I would keep an eye out for big things coming from the younger Espargaro brother.
Solomon Talks Bikes 