MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

On the first weekend of August, the Suzuka 8 Hours Race was held at Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture, within an hour's drive from Nagoya, the third biggest city in Japan. This year saw the 44th edition, and Honda is the most successful manufacturer in its history: 29 victories.

This number of victories is overwhelming. Since the Suzuka 8 Hours is regarded as one of the most important races for Honda, a string HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) top management came to Suzuka one after another, with HRC President Koji Watanabe also arriving at the racetrack on Saturday morning. In Sunday’s race, their factory team, Team HRC with Japan Post, dominated all through the eight hours and achieved victory for the second year in a row. It was such a beautiful summer night, and everything went silky smooth for them in the 8 Hours race.

Everything is the complete opposite in MotoGP, however. In the premier world championship for motorcycle racing, Honda has been suffering something they have never experienced before.

As of Round 9, the British GP, Honda has taken only one podium from twenty seven opportunities. In the riders’ standings, the highest place for any of Honda's four riders is 14th, and in the manufacturers' championship, Honda lies in 4th place, with their accumulated points less than one third of Ducati's. In the team standings, Honda’s factory squad Repsol Honda Team is placed the lowest of all, 11th. This must be the most critical situation in their racing history.

Therefore, on Saturday afternoon, almost twenty-four hours before the race start in Suzuka, we conducted a one-on-one interview with the HRC president Koji Watanabe, probably the very first opportunity in the world for MotoGP-related media. We asked the top executive who manages all of their racing activities in the company without any reservations and straight to the point; how can they get out of this miserable situation? And what is the roadmap to resurrection and getting back the glory again?

　Watanabe-san became the president of HRC on April 1st, 2022. That was the moment that HRC, which used to be the specialized motorcycle racing organization, integrated Formula One and other four-wheel racing activities to become the “new” HRC to manage all the racing activities for Honda. In the inaugural speech when he was appointed the president, Watanabe-san announced four concepts of the new HRC;

• Elevating the Honda brand further through HRC’s motorsports activities.
• Continuing commitment to carbon neutrality for sustainable motorsports.
• Providing opportunities and expanding the environment for motorsports to enjoy racing more.
• Contributing to Honda's motorcycle and automobile business through motorsports activities.

We started the question firstly to ask whether these four concepts were proceeding as they had originally planned.

KW:　Basically, we are on schedule. There are some areas where we have to probe carefully to figure out what to do and how to do, so everything cannot be done immediately. However, we did anticipate more or less some difficulties from the beginning in terms of integrating two wheels and four wheels into one specialized racing company and managing the activities.

For example, even in our parent company Honda Motor Corporation, motorcycles and automobiles are developed on their own and have few communications with each other, and so are the different cultures between them. And when I started managing both of them, I found out that they have their strong points and some points to improve each other.

For two wheels, HRC has a lot of accumulated experience through its long racing history. Motorsports and business have strong links, which makes the most of our products such as one-make races and so on.

On the other hand, although four wheels has excellent technology, the idea of what to do with them in the context of motorsports as a whole and their links to the business have some room to improve. Therefore, I was reminded that complementing their strong points and points to improve between two wheels and four wheels is very important.

Q: You just mentioned that the strong point of two-wheeled racing is having a lot of accumulated experience through its long racing history. So, what is the weakness and points to improve for two wheels in HRC?

KW: Setting aside describing it as a "weakness," I think we should have done technical communication between two and four wheels more proactively even earlier. Actually, we had it. But from the current viewpoint that we have intense communications, it makes me feel that it was not enough in the past. For example, maybe two wheels tended to stick with their own ideas, which might have restricted their way of thinking about new technology. Now four-wheeled technology translates more and more to two wheels in aerodynamics and engine combustion, then they produce many interesting ideas that are completely different from those in the past. The synergy effect between two and four wheels is creating a very good stimulus for two-wheeled activities.

Q: You also mentioned that two wheels and four wheels have different cultures. Does that affect something in technological communications?

KW: Originally, two and four wheels have been going their own way. In that sense, I understand that the two-wheel staff do not want four-wheel people to meddle with their field, and vice versa. Therefore, we management side should not push them to do things, but prepare the environment so they can voluntarily choose things when they see the perspectives in front of them. What we should not do in the first place is to force two-wheel engineers, saying “You have to use this four-wheel technology.”

Q: After you were appointed the HRC president, we often saw you in your team garage on race weekends. I remember seeing you in the paddock at Portimao, and you came to Mugello, too. And I saw you on the TV screen at the Red Bull Ring for the Formula One race. Is it because of your commitment to the on-site racing activities?

KW: Well, it is true that I love the racing paddock. But in reality, we have a pile of things to be coordinated and discussed. So, it is not just a courtesy call at all. There are many things to be sorted out here and there, both in MotoGP and Formula One.

Q: And this is what I wanted to hear from you. HRC is struggling now in MotoGP, experiencing one of the lowest performances in its history. I don’t remember witnessing such grim struggles from HRC in the past. Probably, there are complicated reasons for it, but from your point of view, why do you have to struggle now like this?