This motorcycle devours champions!
Honda RC213V
Honda Racing Corporation has been the force to be reckoned with for the better part of the Moto GP era since it began in 2002 –winning 10 riders championships and 10 teams and was the constructor to beat more than 10x in the last two and a half decade of Moto GP era.
And they managed to attract some elite riders into their stables – such as The Legend Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Nicky Hayden, Marc Marquez and the list goes on – but in the past few years no rider wants to touch the RC12V with a 10 feet poler, why is that?
When the Grand Prix Organisers felt the need to bring about a change in the premier class of the Grand Prix racing to keep the competition alive and bring back some excitement that was lost to four-stroke superbike racers during the 90s when they became more relevant for both the audience and the manufacturers – New Regulation was brought in to tackle this perhaps the biggest regulation change in the Motorcycle Grand Prix History.
RC211V: 2002 – 2006
Gone were the provocative two-stroke 500cc machines that tore up the grand prix circuits for decades and in came the high revving 200+ hp 990cc four-stroke machines that gave the manufacturers liberty to employ an engine configuration of their choice as long as they stayed below the maximum allowed capacity of 990 cubic capacity and they should be a built from the ground up with only one goal in mind to go racing.
Right out the gate, Honda came out dominating the newly found class with a prodigious Italian riding it – the new Honda Prototype racer was christened the RC211V taking two back-to-back championship victories dominantly with Valentino Rossi onboard.
But not all was sunshine and rainbows for Honda – with Valentino Rossi leaving Honda for Yamaha for the 2004 season and Yamaha picking up pace alongside its Japanese counterpart –Honda had to settle for second with riders like Sete Gibernau, Marco Melandri and Nicky Hayden all proved to be formidable challengers to Valentino Rossi and Yamaha regardless they failed to clinch the title.
2006 was the last season of the RC211V and Honda was not going to retire this bike without its one last hurrah – with a little assistance from bits and pieces borrowed from the development RC212V successor of the RC211V – Honda won the riders championship with Nicky Hayden on board.
The intensive in-season development from HRC kept Nicky Hayden in the championship fight with consistent results with luck favouring the Honda Rider when defending champions Yamaha and Valentino Rossi had a slew of bad results and an abysmal start to the season for The Yamaha M1 that was stricken with unreliability and some uncustomary mistakes from Rossi himself.
With Nicky Hayden sealing the rider’s championships in the last round of the season in Valencia – it marked Honda winning 3 out of the first 5 seasons of the Moto GP era, sealing Honda’s fortune as one of the bikes to be on if you want to hunt for the title in the newly former premier class of motorcycle racing.
RC212V: 2007 – 2011
Officially launched in October of 2006 in post-season testing – but, officially made its debut in Grand Prix Racing in 2007 – RC212V came into existence because FIM introduced some new set of regulations for the Moto GP challengers to abide by to go racing in the premier class. One of the most notable ones was an upper limit of 800cc engine capacity – resulting in a slight downgrade in power compared to early iterations of Moto GP machines that came about between 2002 and 2006.
Honda failed to exercise the same dominance as they achieved in the first season of Moto GP – failing to maximize the revamped regulations – meant Honda was a step behind in the development race, while their competition made hay with it.
Ducati won the 2007 season then later on Yamaha stayed at the top with their two star riders – Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi accumulating three championships among them.
There was massive speculation among the paddock that the new set of engine rules would benefit Honda more than other manufacturers, as it was understood at the time that Honda would have a much easier time at transitioning their engine specification to match the 800cc limit – But the reality was Honda was the one that struggled the most and managed to win only two races with Dani Pedrosa onboard.
Regardless of its issues, Dani Pedrosa managed to cling on to the second spot in the standing albeit being more than a hundred points off the World Champion – Casey Stoner on board the Ducati.
The next few years were a wave of the inconsistent form for the RC212V – with Honda experimenting with the new pneumatic designs, tyre issues and chassis problems left Dani Pedrosa always short on the final standing in the championship.
But, just like its predecessor Rc211v, RC212V went out with a bang – in 2011 on the hands of Casey Stoner Honda RC212V crossed the line to mark Casey Stoner as the 2011 world champion and saving RC212V from retiring without a championship – although not entirely a failure – RC212V managed to win races and finish respectfully in the standings – It will no doubt be one of the least succesfull Honda’s Moto GP challengers – note this, despite winning plenty of races and a world championships RC212V is considered to be very troubled and fairly unsuccefull bike for HRC – comprehend the standards Honda has set for itself and keep this in Mind for the upcoming scenarios.
RC213V: 2012 – present
Made its debut in 2012 in the hands of 2x world champion Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa on the factory team – This time the Regulations for the championship were changed again – Now the engine capacity was at 1000cc and the bore limit of 81mm – new regulations brought a different type development race – manufacturers were chasing the RPMs, higher the RPMs the more power these engines made and more power equals to better top speed (in the previous seasons the development race would have centred around tyres, suspension and chassis & engine configurations to better suit the handling characteristics of the bike).
In 2012 Honda RC213V was quick right out of the gate, unlike its predecessors which took its sweet time to gel with the new rules and be competitive – RC213V won 12 of 18 races that season and won the manufacturers title, unfortunately, Dani Pedrosa fell short on the riders title despite winning more races than the eventual champion Jorge Lorenzo who was slightly more consistent and rather fortunate.
The subsequent years were when the RC213V etched its name in the history pages of unprecedented glory and success – a very enigmatic young rider Marc Marquez took the helm of the RC213V that was left vacant after Casey Stoner retired from Grand Prix racing and took it to a run of championships that was rarely witnessed in the history of Grand Prix racing from – 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
But what has happened now, to this powerhouse of Grand Prix Racing? that no rider wants to ride their motorcycle and those who are riding are battered and bruised both physically and mentally.
The very Bike that took Marc Marquez to the heights of glory. shattered him to such an extent that he had to terminate his contract a year earlier to go and ride for a customer team of a rival manufacturer and in the past season RC213V managed to belittle riders of extreme calibre such as Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Joan Mir, Pol Espargaro, Alex Rins and Johan Zarco – all great riders some even world champions in Moto GP and other subsequent classes – were made to look like amateur riders from Sunday track day – confused and bruised, But why is that?
From 2020 onwards the fortunes of RC213V and Honda took a drastic turn – their talisman rider Marc Marquez had a violent crash at the beginning of the 2020 season in Jerez while hunting for the race win and had to miss the whole season to patch himself up – but this very incident was the turning point for Honda and Marc as the consequences and demons of injury in 2020 plagued them both.
The absence of Marc Marquez from the track and testing heavily hindered the development of the bike and certain decisions from the past came haunting – One of the key areas where Honda fell short was in the new aerodynamic era that was ushered by Ducati, throughout the domination years Honda was falling short on its competitors as was evident with other prominent Honda Riders couldn’t extract the similar performance from the bike – it was only Marc and his sheer talent that took them to that title, Jorge Lorenzo three time Moto GP world champion was forced into retirement in his first year on the bike because of the harsh and brutal nature of the Motorcycle that plagues his debut season with honda with injuries and poor performances.
Masking the shortcomings of the Honda RC213V and the subsequent success that came on the hands of Marc Marquez and his talent may have given a false illusion to the engineers that they were on the right development path – which was exposed when Marc Marquez had his crash and was sidelined for a while and even after he made his return the consequences of that injury hampered his ability to ride the bike to its fullest and those cat-like reflexes that have saved him and Honda from violent crashes in the past were gone.
When Marc completely recovered from his injuries and back to his 100% potential it was too late RC213V was far too gone for Marc to keep any hope alive of winning a race on the bike let alone a championship which led him to terminate one of the illustrious contract in Grand Prix Racing to ride for a year old Ducati.
The move paid off as Marc stands third in the championship and bags a factory Ducati seat for the upcoming season alongside current world champion Pecco Bagnaia completely reversing his fortunes from last year – the same could not be said for Honda.
Now as the story stands with Honda in Moto GP, it is on the back of the grid among all the manufacturers and its riders who are quite highly rated now look confused and baffled – their lead rider Joan Mir a world champion looks lost and confused like a deer in the headlights.
Joan Mir who won his first title by capitalizing on his consistency and ability to maximize the potential of the race weekend by not crashing and gradually picking up points Now seems like he crashes in every other session on a race weekend and when he gets back to his engineers looks lost for words. Such is the story for the other three riders onboard the Honda RC213V – they are either on the back of the grid riding seconds of the pace or crash trying to match the pace with the leaders.
As it stands Honda is the slowest manufacturer on the grid and lost their star rider and their current riders are showing no visible signs of improvement rather signs of regret and disbelief in their bike’s package are quite visible.
No rider with a sane mind wants to be associated with the most successful bike in the Moto GP era quite a turn in fortunes in the past 4 years for the biggest name in the history of Moto GP and Grand Prix competition. Which attracted one of the big names in the Motorcycle Racing and all five of the original aliens – 1. Rossi, 2. Casey Stoner, 3. Dani Pedrosa, 4. Marc Marquez and 5. Jorge Lorenzo raced for this illustrious manufacturer.
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