Last year, I created something of a hullabaloo when I postulated that Honda or Yamaha — or, in a worst-case scenario, both — might quit MotoGP. Both had seemingly given up on racing, barely developing their racing motorcycles — RC213V and YZR-M1 respectively — suffering terrible public humiliation in the motorcycling press, mainly a result of the withering criticism dealt to their respective top riders, Fabio Quartararo for Yamaha and, of course, Marc Marquez for Honda.
It was trials of the latter that had me betting that, of the two, a Honda withdrawal would be the least surprising. The company has been very much spoiled with its racing success over the years and, more importantly, has traditionally been very much of the belief that its engineering abilities were more important…
