Livio Suppo Talks About Honda Opportunities In The 2023 Season

Repsol Honda is preparing to navigate MotoGP 2023. (Photo: Twitter/@HRC_MotoGP)

JAKARTA - The Repsol Honda factory team is seriously preparing for the best performance to enter the 2023 season competition. In every way that has been worked on, Livio Suppo said there was no reason for Honda not to perform well this season.

Previously, this Japanese team tried to boost its appearance by recruiting Joan Mir and Alex Rins. Then they continued by cooperating with Ken Kawauchi as the new technical manager to return to the top.

According to Suppo, Honda is the strongest manufacturer in a competition that has won nine World Championships and won 65 times in the first class. It is this background that makes the former Honda principal team unable to blame the riders if they are unable to compete, moreover they now have qualified ammunition.

"Honda now has two former World Champions," said Livio Suppo, quoted from MotoGP.com, Tuesday, January 31.

"A rider who has won two of the last three races and (Takaaki) Nakagami who has proven he is much better than the previous riders. They don't have rookies, they don't have anyone there for any other reason."

"They have four good riders. Three of them are able to win races, two of them won the Championships, so they can't blame the riders if their performance is not optimal," Suppo continued.

Regarding the presence of Joan Mir and Alex Rins as Honda's new employees in the 2023 season, Suppo also considered it an injection of positive enthusiasm.

It was revealed based on Suppo's experience who had collaborated with Mir and Rins throughout 2022 as manager of the Suzuki Team.

That moment allowed Suppo to assess the characters of the two riders he considered would have moved to Honda if they were equipped with the right equipment.

"Both Joan (Mir) and Alex (Rins) only have a Suzuki experience in MotoGP. They can only drive an inline-four machine, which according to motorists in the paddock is easier to drive than V4," Suppo said.

"But if they can forget it and build an approach with a motorbike in a new team, I believe it will help (Honda). It won't be easy because there is a figure of Marc (Marquez)."

"No one has been able to score more points than him (Marc Marquez) for the same season with the same motorbike. The last time Honda won a race without Marc was in 2017 and it was a very long time," he said.