MotoGP, RUMOURS: Takeo Yokoyama to leave job of technical director in Honda HRC

That Honda is going through a bad period is obvious to anyone who follows the championship. Apart from Marc's absence, the other riders also seem to have serious difficulties in emerging, as evidenced by the Sachsenring GP in which for the first time since the distant 1983 Swedish GP, no Honda rider scored points in the premier class.

As Speedweek reports, for many months we have been wondering when the first heads would begin to roll in the Japanese manufacturer, and now the answer seems to have arrived. Takeo Yokohama, the technical director of Honda HRC, currently still in the paddock at Misano, will be the first sacrificial victim in view of the Japanese manufacturer's poor performance.

Takeo Yokoyama has been part of the Honda family since 1996. He left to study in the United States in 2002 and returned to HRC in 2004 working as a chassis designer. After three years as Dani Pedrosa's track engineer, he moved on to the role of Technical Director and has had the opportunity to use all his valuable experience to date. As HRC's technical manager since 2018, Takeo has led the development of the Honda RC213V to improve and fight for the World Championship every season.

But the poor results in the last two constructors' world championships, with the Japanese manufacturer respectively sixth and even last in 2020 and 2021 have finally sanctioned the fate of the technical director, who could say goodbye to the championship at the end of the season at the latest.

Even in the Riders’ championship, the results have certainly not been encouraging. The vicissitudes of the eight-time world champion have in fact weighed heavily, and two years of Covid-19 and related restrictions certainly cannot be held as justification, considering that two Japanese manufacturers have won the title in those years, Suzuki with Joan Mir in 2020 and Yamaha with Fabio Quartararo in 2021.

Something seems to be starting to move therefore, and Yamaha's hiring of Luca Marmorini, a Formula 1 engineer who previously worked in the engine department with Toyota and Ferrari, means that all the manufacturers are looking around.