Mystery surrounds … part 94. As ever with Honda, only hints and persiflage were forthcoming to questions about the factory team’s double non-finish at the last round in Texas, and a new carbon-coated chassis that appeared for the first time at Jerez.

The Texas question centred on the reason for Marquez’s crash, and for new team-mate Lorenzo’s early race breakdown, after he had also suffered a chain jump off the sprocket in practice.

Marquez skirted the issue, but his answers seemed to suggest a possible engine management issue – especially engine braking control – that had caused him to lose the front and crash out of an assured lead.

He was riding, he said, as he had to victory in Argentina. “I felt I was rising smoothly, and not on the limit.

“We had a small problem already in Argentina,” he said. “I cannot say what it was, but we thought we had fixed it, but we didn’t. But it was just the third race, the engine is new … sometimes it can happen.”

The issue did not arise on every lap, he said, so it was an intermittent problem. Now, he continued, “after deep analysis, we think we have fixed it.”

Lorenzo’s chain-jump problem (the same thing happened to Marquez in practice in Argentina) has been blamed to possible flex in the carbon-fibre swing-arm, and is unlikely to happen again.

But his engine failure, also electronic, triggered serious worries, and his bike was sent to Japan for further investigation. Simulation had caused a repeat, he told press, and to avoid future problems “they changed something in the electronic side”.

The new RC213V chassis was shrouded in mystery in the same way as it was shrouded in carbon, and was only used by official test rider Stefan Bradl, with the factory team expected to get their first chance to assess it in post-race tests at the Spanish track.

Bradl placed an impressive ninth, less than half a second off the top time; but when asked about plans for the new chassis, HRC team chief Alberto Puig told Dorna’s Simon Crafar: “We are going to try to fly to the moon,” declining to expand further.

Honda, Suzuki and Ducati have all used bonded-on carbon sections to adjust stiffness ratios in the past.

By Michael Scott

Photos GnG