Honda buoyed by internal competition

The fierce internal competition between Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Andrea Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli is a major positive for Honda in 2011, says HRC boss Livio Suppo.

Honda hasn’t won the premier class title since 2006, but on the evidence of winter testing so far, the Japanese factory appears in its strongest position to fight for glory in the 800cc era.

All four factory riders have been impressively fast during the pre-season with Honda’s new RC212V machine dominant in two tests at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia.

Suppo, who left Ducati to join Honda in a senior marketing role for 2010, said Yamaha had proved in recent years the benefit of having such strong internal competition.

Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo’s bitter rivalry not only pushed development of Yamaha’s factory YZR-M1 to a level unmatched by Honda and Ducati, but they also pushed each other on track.

The result of that rivalry was the most successful period in Yamaha’s history. It has won the triple crown of rider, team and constructor titles every year since 2008, and Suppo told MCN: “From a garage point of view it is perhaps better to have a clear number one rider. From a manufacturer point of view it is much better to have as many of the top riders as possible. It might be complicated to manage but look at the results of Yamaha for the last three years, it has been incredible I don’t think the president of Yamaha cared that there was a wall between Valentino and Jorge or that they were big rivals. The competition between Valentino and Jorge was good for Yamaha but also for them, and we see it being the same for us at Honda this year.”
While Suppo acknowledged Honda’s pre-season performances suggested it was capable of a serious title challenge this season, he said it was tough to predict the outcome of the championship.

He added: “In 2010 the Honda was getting better and better and that was easy to see from the results. At the moment we have a combination of a good machine and good riders so we are optimistic. But Yamaha is there with Jorge and (Ben) Spies. They are doing very good lap times. And Valentino is Valentino and that bike works. That bike won three of the last six races of last year with Casey, so I think the tests have been a shock because of his (Rossi’s) results.  That machine is different to a Japanese machine and the rider needs to adapt to it. Valentino has the talent to do it and I’ve no doubt he will be there. There are seven riders that are very strong and the strong point for us is we have four. But on paper it looks very difficult to predict.”