Honda has transferred its technical director Ken Kawauchi to its check crew in MotoGP, Autosport can reveal.
Kawauchi joined the Japanese marque’s racing division at the start of the 2023 season from Suzuki, after its MotoGP undertaking ceased a number of months earlier.
Regardless of the excessive expectations that adopted Suzuki’s success in successful the riders’ world championship title in 2020 with Joan Mir, the Japanese technician has not managed to alter the course of Honda’s troubled MotoGP effort or shut the hole to pacesetter Ducati.
During the last 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 crew managed by Lucio Checchinello.
However Kawauchi has switched to working inside the check crew, with the change already efficient from the previous couple of grands prix. The previous Suzuki man’s presence contained in the storage of Joan Mir and Luca Marini has most definitely meant that nobody seen his change of position.
Nevertheless, Honda confirmed the transfer to Autosport on Thursday, forward of its residence race at Motegi.
“Ken Kawauchi is now targeted on working with the HRC check crew in a technical position the place he brings the expertise and knowledge gained from his time in racing,” it stated.
“Because the check crew grows in significance, and is about to broaden to 3 riders by 2025, it’s essential to have somebody skilled in all points of improvement.”
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Group
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Photographs
The technical director emptiness left by Kawauchi on the race squad has been stuffed by Mikihiko Kawase.
He has been promoted internally from Honda’s racing division HRC, which Kawase joined in 2012.
Honda continues to be in the course of a significant inside reshuffle. A yr in the past at Motegi, Shinichi Kokubu, who till then had been basic technical director (a degree above the Kawauchi position), left the MotoGP undertaking and was replaced by Shin Sato.
Months later it was the flip of general manager Tetsuhiro Kuwata to leave his post, which is now held by Taichi Honda.
All these modifications are understood to be aimed toward bettering the efficiency of the RC213V, for which the most effective consequence this season was a ninth place for Johann Zarco (LCR) final Sunday in Indonesia.