It's hard to remember a crisis like the one Honda is facing this early in the season. Last Sunday in Texas, the only RC213V that reached the finish line was Marini's, finishing more than 33 seconds behind the winnerm Viñales. "Luca is a survivor," Mir said jokingly. Yesterday, the HRC team was in Barcelona doing a private test as they try to get back on track.
In Texas, Team Manager Alberto Puig spoke to motogp.com about the situation: "All I can say is that they're working hard in Japan. They're working on many different things. There are new people. They're not sleeping on it."
There's no reason not to believe him, but the only judge in racing is the stopwatch, and it's certainly not in Honda's favor.
"Our bike isn't performing well," Puig admitted. "We've made big changes, improvements, at least in theory. You can't see them on the track and, right now, we're a little confused. We're trying a lot of different things, but we're not seeing anything really convincing on the track."
This is definitely a problem, and the riders are becoming impatient, starting with Mir. In the US, the rider from Majorca had stated that Honda "has taken a wrong course, and they have to take responsibility for it." With 3 out of 4 riders down in the GP, you can't blame him. They're hoping that the private tests in Spain have brought some light into the darkness in which Honda seems to be groping.