Ducati’s rise to the top of the pecking order in MotoGP has coincided with the fall of Japanese giants Honda and Yamaha. Long the championship’s dominant force and title favourites, both have gradually slipped down the order and are now battling to avoid finishing last in the standings.
Honda’s dominance came to an abrupt end when Marc Marquez suffered career-altering injuries at the start of the 2020 season. Subsequently, victories and even podiums became rarer, and in 2024 its two teams failed to finish inside the top five in a single grand prix.
At Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo won the title in 2021 and remained in contention against Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia the following year, but the cracks were already starting to appear by then. Last year, even podiums were out of reach for the Frenchman.
The decline in Honda and Yamaha’s fortunes has been largely attributed to their approach towards MotoGP, as they have both been reluctant to make drastic changes to their programmes and adopt new methodologies. Over the last 12 months or so, the situation has begun to change: Yamaha’s technical department is now being led by former Ducati man Max Bartolini, while Honda has similarly hired Romano Albesiano from Aprilia.
MotoGP has also responded to the widening performance gulf between European and Japanese brands by adjusting its concession system to offer significant freedom in development, albeit with limited results so far. Nevertheless, Yamaha and Honda have shown encouraging signs in the last part of the season, with both being able to fight inside the top 10 again.
Honda, having scored just 26 points in the opening 10 rounds of the year, added 49 to its tally in the second half. Yamaha’s results also improved but by a smaller margin, with the Iwata-based brand scoring 57 points in the first part of the year and 67 in the next.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha MotoGP Team, Alex Rins, Yamaha MotoGP Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
By analysing the fastest time set by their leading riders in main practice, the only session that brings together the entire field with the objective of getting a direct slot into Q2, one can see a similar trend over the course of 2024.
In the first half of the year, the best-placed Yamaha rider had an average deficit of 0.78% to the overall leader, which changed marginally to 0.79% from the Austrian GP in August. At Honda, this gap reduced from 1.17% to 0.86% after the midpoint…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – MotoGP – Stories…