Honda in 2008

just bob wrote:
> Not sure I like where they are headed. In 2005 and 2006 you had customer
> teams on Honda's winning races. This year and next only the factory team has
> the latest bikes. Why anyone would bother running a 2007 bike in 2008 is
> beyond me. I guess if sponsors pay the bills it's good enough to keep the
> team alive but they are just filling the field. MotoGP as we knew it may be
> dead.

A bit of an overreaction, don't you think? What Honda will likely be
supplying to the lease teams are new bike that will be built on what
they learned this year about their chassis plus versions of whatever is
the final factory motor on this year's bike. As lease team fare goes,
that's probably about average. The best of them probably have been what
Biaggi got at Pons in 03-04 and Barros at Tech3 in 2003, if you exclude
the full factory bikes that Ukawa and Katoh/Gibernau got at that time.
The worst ones probably are some of the literally year-old Ducatis that
have been shoveled at D'Antin, or maybe something like the bike Ellison
had to ride at D'Antin last year, or Edwards in 2004 at Gresini, bikes
that had known serious chassis problems that just didn't get fixed.

The other thing about Honda in the past is that you have to look at the
particulars. In 2003 when they spread the 211 wealth, they were still
ahead of everyone else and had most of the best riders, but I think it
would be a mistake to think that their lease bikes were really close to
what Rossi got. And in 04-05 their best riders weren't obviously in the
lead seat at Repsol, so they had reason to spread it around more. Now
their lease guys are going to be Harada, de Puniet, de Angelis and
Dovizioso, so is there all that much reason to be terribly concerned
about them with Pedrosa and Hayden in the factory team? The other part
of that is tires, and is it likely that those guys will get the best
from Michelin and Bridgestone? So why sweat the bikes?

Seems like the Honda lease guys win races when Honda has a real leg up,
like in the late '90s when Yamaha and Suzuki were is disarray, or in the
early days of MotoGP, when they'd gotten off to a faster start than the
other factories. So what factory has had the most lease bike wins in a
single season? Hint - it's not Honda...
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