2012 Season debrief with Shuhei Nakamoto
Friday, 11 January 2013
In the 2012 MotoGP season, Honda had hoped to repeat its 2011
performance and take all three Titles again. Twelve wins out of 18 races
gave Honda the Constructors Title for the 19th time (61st, counting all
GP classes).
Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner did solid work for the Repsol Honda Team,
appearing together on the podium eight times, and Repsol Honda had
podium finishes in every race of the season to gain the Team Title
again. A number of factors combined to keep the Riders Championship out
of Honda hands this time, though.
The first half of the season was especially difficult for Dani as the
team struggled to adapt to a last minute minimum weight rule change,
followed by new tire specs. But, the story changed for him in the
season’s second half after the introduction of the new bike, redesigned
to meet the rule and spec changes. Dani could now use the full potential
of the RC213V and start clocking up wins, but it was just too late for
the title. Dani continues to improve, winning seven races this season,
more than any other rider, and finishing his best MotoGP season just 18
points off Jorge Lorenzo. Casey Stoner, last year’s champion, had
already decided to retire at the end of this season, and an unfortunate
injury prevented him from reaching higher than third place overall.
In this report, HRC Executive Vice President Shuhei Nakamoto looks back
over the 2012 season and comments on his hopes and plans for the coming
year.
This season is over, you’ve completed the first set of tests
for next year, and we’re now in the period where tests are not
permitted. I’m sure you’ve been asked these questions many times, but
let’s start with your overall impression of 2012.
The big thing about 2012 was the switch from 800cc to 1000cc engines.
We started getting ready for that from the beginning of the 2011 season.
The first time we ran the 2012 prototype was after Round Two in Spain.
In the third lap of that test Casey effortlessly outdid his previous
personal best on the 800cc in the 2011 Spanish GP. Since we were still
keeping the revs down at that point because we hadn’t fixed some
durability issues with the engine, this made us very happy indeed – we
knew we had put together a bike we could use. After that, Bridgestone
changed their rear tire casing to soft, and we modified the new bike to
match that. We still hadn’t completed that process when we had to run
the RC213V in the test after Valencia, the final GP of 2011. Despite
this, Dani made the top test time with a speed that beat his race time
in the GP. Both Dani and Casey agreed that the new bike was even better
than the 800cc RC212V. But just as we thought all w as safe, the minimum
weight rule was changed by 4kg. That was in addition to the increase
from 150kg to 153kg when the engine capacity went up from 800cc to
1000cc. We had built our bike to match the old regulations, and then we
were hit with this sudden rule change. According to the rules, they have
the right to do this, but I really don’t think it is fair to introduce
such big changes so suddenly after we had finished testing.
The sudden rule change meant that for the first test of 2012 at
Sepang, you were adding weights to various parts of the bike to bring
it up to the new 157kg minimum. Adding 4kg like that disturbed the
bike’s balance, and this must have made it hard for Casey and Dani.
Yes, and especially so for Dani because he is smaller and lighter than
Casey, so he had a very tough time controlling the balance of the bike
by shifting his weight. We kept trying adding weights in different
places to see what worked, and we had only found a rough solution during
the first part of the season. You might think that 4kg isn’t much, but
to add 4kg to a racing bike means we have to make very extensive
changes, rethinking the whole machine. And then on top of that,
Bridgestone brought out a new front tire with a different construction.
We complained that the new tire was unusable since it didn’t have
sufficient rigidity, but Dorna’s Loris Capirossi insisted that it was a
better choice and so we had to fit it. So now both front and rear tires
had changed and this bike we had just spent a whole year perfecting had
to be rebuilt. With just three months before the season’s first race we
decided to remake the bike, and began work on a new frame and swing arm.
Since Bridgestone took over as sole tire supplier, success in
MotoGP has come to depend greatly on how well a bike can utilise the
performance of the tires. Changing the tire specs mid-season has a
radical impact on how you build the bike.
Traditionally, Hondas have not been famous for their cornering - it’s
been the horsepower we get from our engines that makes us competitive.
But when Bridgestone became sole supplier, the focus shifted greatly to
getting all the performance you could out of the tires. In other words,
we now need to build the bike to match the tires. How will the bike
flex? How will tire performance degrade as the tires wear? So naturally a
change in the tires mid-season now requires us to make major
modifications. We could continue using the old hard construction front
tires in the first part of the season, until Round Five in Catalunya,
but from the England GP onward everyone had to switch to the new soft
construction front tires. By Round Seven in Holland we had managed to
put together a new frame prototype adapted to the new tire, and Dani
liked the new bike as soon as he started using it. We tried out the new
engine in this new frame at the test after Round Nine in Italy, in
effect a practical test of the 2013 prototype. Dani was most impressed
and switched to this new machine from Laguna Seca (Round 10). Casey also
liked the new engine, but didn’t feel that the new frame changed things
much, so he kept using the old frame with the new engine fitted. We
introduced the 2013 design mid way through the season in order to
improve stability during deceleration through changes to the engine, and
to improve cornering with the new chassis. As you can see, in today’s
MotoGP, building the bike to match the tires is a key factor.
Building the bike to match the tires. Speaking as a bike manufacturer, tell us what that involves.
I have no real problem with the present system of a single tire
manufacturer for MotoGP. When everyone races on the same tires, the
tires become purely an engineering matter. On top of that, each rider
has his likes and dislikes when it comes to tires. Building bikes to
meet different riders’ preferences is a new kind of challenge, and of
course we welcome new challenges. From that point of view in fact, I
have to say we have learned a lot since Bridgestone became sole
supplier. Factory teams have the accumulated experience that lets them
take on this kind of challenge, but the CRT teams don’t have that
ability. When we had the multiple tire supplier system, it was possible
to construct tires to exactly match each bike with each rider, and the
tire could compensate for other factors. This meant that we had times
when satellite team riders beat the factory riders, but that no longer
applies under the sole supplier system - when things are good, they’re
good for everyone; when they’re bad, everyone suffers the same. Under
such equal conditions, you rarely get surprise results. With a single
supplier, the factory teams are always very strong since they can apply
their past experience, and this leaves little chance of winning for the
non-factory riders and teams. For example, this season the podium was
almost monopolised by just three riders: Dani, Casey and Jorge. There
was no real chance of any other rider winning a race. This is why, from a
personal standpoint, I prefer multiple tire suppliers. It simply makes
the races more exciting, and I think it is better for the whole grand
prix world.
Casey Stoner retired at the end of this season. Tell us some of
the details of that, and what you thought of his racing in his final
year.
Casey told us last year that he was thinking to retire at the end of
2012. It was after he won the Australian GP to secure the championship.
He still had one more year to run on his contract with us, so he said he
would ride for Honda in 2012, but it was quite a shock to hear he
wanted to retire. Ever since the season began, he kept saying he wanted
to make his decision public. Naturally, we really wanted him to continue
with us and repeatedly tried to persuade him to reconsider, but Casey’s
mind was made up. It was at Round Four in France that he finally got
his way and announced his plans during the Thursday Press Conference. I
was OK with that, since I thought it would motivate him to win his final
championship and retire in a blaze of glory. Unfortunately it didn't
turn out like that, but he still had a great final season.
I’m sure you must have been disappointed that you couldn’t persuade Casey to change his mind and stay in MotoGP.
Casey is a rider I really love. I couldn’t imagine anything better than
racing with him. Casey is fast. Really fast. We were constantly shocked
that the bikes we had made could go so fast when Casey was in the
saddle. When Casey is confident and relaxed about his riding, there is
nobody in MotoGP who can come close. After winning the Australian GP
this year for the sixth consecutive time, his comment was just that he
would have been even faster if he hadn’t still been suffering from an
injured ankle. However fast he rides, he’s still always aiming to go
faster. We held a farewell party for him on the Monday night after the
Valencia GP. After the party was over, the two of us stayed on,
chatting, and I found I couldn’t control my tears. I really felt so sad
about him leaving MotoGP. The following day I was asked by a number of
Casey’s friends what I said to him that night. When I asked why they
wanted to know, they said that Casey, who had never wavered until then
in his decision to retire, had said “maybe after all I should keep on
racing…” Right from the first day Casey came to ride for Repsol Honda,
pretty much every day he came up with something new that astonished us. I
don’t know of any other rider that is such fun to work with. I hope he
quickly recovers from his injury, and if he ever decides to come back he
will find a warm welcome waiting. I told him that’s always on offer.
We heard that Casey himself suggested Marquez as his replacement.
Well, I don’t know if he actually said that or not, but Marc has the
same kind of energy as Casey and we have great hopes for him. He has now
ridden in four days of tests, one after Valencia and three after
Sepang. The weather was poor on all those days and there wasn’t much
time at all for him to show us how he can ride, but nevertheless, at
Sepang he was putting in 2’01” laps very consistently. That time is
pretty much the same as Casey and Dani, but even so Marc was constantly
issuing a stream of comments such as “I need to hold the advantage at
that corner so as to avoid falling” - comments he would carefully write
down afterwards so as to remember them. I wasn’t there at the Malaysia
test, but I heard about that from our staff and was very surprised. I’ve
never met a rider who acts like that before. Mid way through the 2011
season, I said to Marc “If you move up to MotoGP next year, I’ll have a
factory bi ke ready for you.” He wanted to take the Moto2 championship
first, and I told him to go for it. The decision to offer Marc a bike
had nothing to do with any sponsor - I myself decided we needed Marc on a
Honda, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he can do. When we
first gave him an RC213V at Valencia, he got straight on and told us he
already understood how to use the carbon brakes. In Malaysia, with the
bike laid over he was opening the throttle exactly right. A very
intelligent rider, always thinking about how to make his bike go faster,
and there’s definitely something about him that is sure to attract a
big fan following. Next year I see him seriously competing with Dani and
Jorge, although it won’t be easy to grab a victory away from those two.
Nonetheless, I reckon we could see a win by Marc by mid season.
Dani Pedrosa finished this season with seven wins, the most of
any rider. What do you think? Is next season the one where he wins the
riders’ title?
I think if he doesn’t take the title next year, he probably never will,
but if he does then it’s quite possible he’ll go on to be champion
several times. Dani used to be known for always winning two races each
season, but in 2011, he took four, and then last season he managed seven
wins. In the first half of last season, he was having a hard time with
the bike as we struggled to fix the balance after the new weight rules,
and then the tire change. But once we introduced the new bike, he just
kept getting better and better. At the Czech GP he fought a tremendous
battle with Jorge, overtaking then being overtaken, until finally Dani
crossed the line ahead. I don’t think he has had a race like that since
his days in 125cc, so I think that marked a new stage for him. He turned
in a superb performance at the final GP in Valencia too, under
conditions so bad that the only dry part of the track was on the line
itself. He astonished everyone with the sp eeds he was getting there -
it really sometimes looked as if the other riders were just standing
still. Our new machine has much improved braking and cornering, and
getting his hands on such a good bike seems to have filled Dani with
fresh confidence. To me, Dani appears to have an extra sense other
riders don’t - he can spot the smallest things, things that others never
feel. He will quickly become aware of subtle changes, for example when
the track surface starts to lose grip. The minus side to this is that it
can make his riding over cautious, but this year he overcame that
tendency and got it just right. He’s beaten his big rival one on one,
ridden through the rain to win at Malaysia, managed to keep his speed
high even in wet conditions, which were previously his weak point.
There’s no question about it - Dani has progressed to another level and
is now a very strong competitor. I’m so confident that he will take the
title next year, I can’t really i magine not seeing him on that podium.
2013 will be Stefan Bradl’s second season in MotoGP and Alvaro
Bautista’s second since he switched to Honda. What are your impressions
of these two riders?
Stefan missed so many chances, including in the final race, for a
podium place that I sometimes wondered what he was doing, but overall he
has improved just as I was expecting him to. He is an intelligent,
educated rider, who uses his brain. Stefan is the only German rider we
have in MotoGP. I’d say he is an important rider, not just for Honda,
but for MotoGP in general and I hope he keeps on aiming for the top.
Next year, Marquez, his old rival in Moto2, will be joining us in MotoGP
and I think this will also help Stefan to develop his skills. Alvaro’s
results on the other hand, were a bit of a disappointment, to tell the
truth. If we include his time with Suzuki, he has much more experience
in MotoGP than Stefan, so I thought we would be seeing better results.
He was on the podium twice this year, but I want to see him up there
much more often next year. He has to get rid of his habit of riding like
he’s still in 250cc.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Could you finish
by summing up your thoughts on 2012, and tell us your goals for next
season?
In general, over the course of this year our bikes got better and our
riders got stronger. We had a big setback when the weight rules and tire
specs changed right at the start of the season - as I told you earlier,
I don’t think that was fair, and I hope it’s never repeated. With such a
handicap, taking our already finished bike, rebuilding it completely
and then going on to win - I have no complaints about our performance.
It’s a pity we didn’t get the riders title, but I feel we achieved
something as constructors. Goals for 2013? Of course I’m aiming at the
triple title. But in racing, nothing is sure, you never know what will
happen. If you lose, you just have to try harder to win, and all we can
do is try our very best to make a winning bike. 2013 testing starts from
February in Malaysia, and we can’t afford to take any time off before
then. Our goal next year is to win all three titles, and forget the
disappointment of not getti ng the triple this year. Next year we’ll
again be doing our best to live up to the expectations of our fans, and
I’d like to say how grateful I am for everyone’s support this season.