Honda has transferred its technical director Ken Kawauchi to its take a look at workforce in MotoGP, Motorsport.com can reveal.
Kawauchi joined the Japanese marque’s racing division at the beginning of the 2023 season from Suzuki, which had pulled the plug on its MotoGP venture a number of months earlier.
Regardless of the excessive expectations given the success of Suzuki, which gained the riders’ world championship title in 2020 with Joan Mir, the Japanese technician has not managed to vary the course of Honda’s troubled MotoGP effort or shut the hole to pacesetter Ducati.
Over the past yr and a half, Kawauchi has acted as a hyperlink between Honda’s two workshops, the manufacturing unit squad and the satellite tv for pc LCR workforce managed by Lucio Checchinello.
However Kawauchi has switched to working throughout the take a look at workforce, with the change already efficient from the previous few grands prix. The previous Suzuki man’s presence contained in the storage of Joan Mir and Luca Marini has almost definitely meant that nobody observed his change of function.
Nevertheless, Honda confirmed the transfer to Motorsport.com on Thursday, forward of its residence race at Motegi.
“Ken Kawauchi is now centered on working with the HRC take a look at workforce in a technical function the place he brings the expertise and knowledge gained from his time in racing,” it mentioned.
“Because the take a look at workforce grows in significance, and is about to increase to 3 riders by 2025, it’s essential to have somebody skilled in all facets of improvement.”
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Staff
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Photographs
The technical director emptiness left by Kawauchi on the race squad has been crammed by Mikihiko Kawase, who has been promoted internally from Honda’s racing division HRC, which he joined in 2012.
Honda remains to be in the midst of a serious inside reshuffle. A yr in the past at Motegi, Shinichi Kokubu, who till then had been common technical director (a degree above the Kawauchi function), left the MotoGP venture and was changed by Shin Sato.
Months later it was the flip of common supervisor Tetsuhiro Kuwata to go away his submit, which is now held by Taichi Honda.
All these modifications are understood to be geared toward enhancing the efficiency of the RC213V, for which the most effective outcome this season was a ninth place for Johann Zarco (LCR) final Sunday in Indonesia.
