Honda has acquired Ken Kawachi, who was a technical manager at Suzuki, who withdrew from MotoGP. He is the technical director in charge of HRC’s MotoGP project.
Ken Kawachi has participated in Suzuki’s MotoGP project for the past 10 years, and as technical manager, with project leader Shinichi Sahara and team principal Davide Brivio, Joan Mir will drive the GSX-RR at the 2020 MotoGP World Championship. won the title.
Since the return of MotoGP in 2015, Suzuki has celebrated a total of seven victories with its new in-line four-cylinder motorcycle, since Maverick Vinales’ first victory at Silverstone in 2016. And although he decided to withdraw at the end of the 2022 season, Suzuki’s Alex Rins took two victories in the same season, at Phillip Island and Valencia.
Ken Kawachi will take over the position of Takeo Yokoyama, who was in charge of MotoGP Profect’s technical manager at HRC since 2016, but was dismissed due to poor performance over the past three years. His predecessor, Takeo Yokoyama, will remain at HRC to train young Japanese engineers.
New HRC technical director Ken Kawachi is familiar with two of Honda’s four current MotoGP riders. Joan Mir will replace Pol Espargaro at Repsol Honda and Alex Rins will replace Alex Marquez at LCR Honda.
Ken Kawachi will join Suzuki with a wealth of experience and a lot of data, and will develop the 2023 version of the Honda RC213V. His knowledge and skills are recognized by everyone in the industry and by his competitors. Honda lags far behind its competitors’ bikes, especially in the area of aerodynamics.
Giacomo Guidotti, Takaaki Nakagami’s crew chief, will return to work at Repsol Honda, where he will look after Joan Mir. In addition, Pol Espargaro Honda crew chief Ramon Aurin will take over the HRC test team with Stefan Bradl as technical director.
“HRC has signed Ken Kawachi as technical manager,” said Repsol Honda team manager Alberto Puig.
That means Honda will use Suzuki’s exit from MotoGP to get fresh ideas from its strong rivals.
Six-time MotoGP world champion Marc Márquez, seeking a bike to beat HRC, has praised the European manufacturer as an example of innovation and speed of development.
HRC has changed a lot since then. Breaking with the proud ‘in-house’ tradition since September, the team has adopted an aluminum swingarm from Carex and just days ago announced a long-term partnership with Akrapovic.
And Marquez has always complained about the lack of engine power in the factory Honda in 2022. Suzuki is also known to have been keenly aware of the lack of horsepower since 2015 and had the GSX-RR in-line engine tuned by Pankl Racing in Austria.
It remains to be seen if Ken Kawachi will take this option with HRC. This is because engine development remains frozen during the season. The 2023 engine specification needs to be homologated on March 23rd, so time is running out.
At Yamaha, former F1 engine man Ing Marmorini has already started tuning the M1 engine a year ago.
By the way, Pankl Racing is owned by KTM boss Stephane Pierer.
