Highlighting that tꦍhe same in-trouble team had done “sometꦗhing good” prior to 2020 – Marquez winning six world titles and Honda 69 races during the same period, with four different riders - the Repsol Honda team manager admitted:

“I think, if you look🍬 back at 2020, we had Covid🦋 and we had Marc’s injury. And from then on it was just downhill.”

While Marquez’s injury complications, partly caused by an early comeback attempt, saw him sidelined until round three of the follow💃ing season, Covid travel restrictions compromised HRC’s development process.

Of course, European manufacturers weꦉre also affected by work-from-home type practices and the pandemic took a far greater human toll on Italy than Japan.

However, the Japanese clearly faced a greater geographical h🀅urdle during the European-only 2020 and almost flyaway-free 2021 MotoGP seasons.

Nonetheless, Honda’s rivals coped with it well, Suꦺzuki won the MotoGP title in 2020 (with Joan Mir) and Yamaha in 2021 (Fabio Quartararo).

“Marc’s si💎tuation was really complicated from a rider point of view with his injuries, but also from the company point of view it was not so easy for our engineers to travel back to Japan, so they had to stay in Europe,” Puig said.

“They could not develop t💫he bike as they we♏re used to doing in the past because they were not going back [to the factory] and exchanging so much info. So suddenly in this type of [covid] racing activity you lose this, but it's this.

“So suddenly one day you go out there and you lose two tenths, then four tenths, thꦰen one second and then yo🌠u are history. I don't think it has been some particular moment, but a progressive coincidence of issues that brought us to this current situation.”

The normal MotoGP calendar format did not return until 2022, while Marquez’s right arm took until the start of 2023 to🦹 regain strength and movement, with two cases of diplopia 🐈to overcome as well.

Honda suffered a cliff-❀edge drop in race wins when Marquez was injured and the pandemic began (and was also winless in 2022).

But in terms of different race winners ಞon the RC213V, the decline began much earlier, after 2016, when Marquez, Dani Pedrosa, Jack Miller and Cal Crutchlow all took v✱ictories.

Honda has taken one win this season, a shock victory by Alex Rins at C𒊎OTA, but its next-bes♓t Sunday result is eighth place.

The injured Rins rem♊ains the top Honda rider in the riders' standings, in 13th, with Honda fourth in the constructors' standings and just 7 points clear of bottom-of-the-table Yamaha, which now has only two bikes.

Honda – MotoGP wins per season 2013-2022

2013: 9 wins (2 winning riders, Marquez champion)

2014: 14 wins (2 winning riders, Marquez champion)

2015: 7 wins (2 winning riders)

2016: 9 wins (4 winning riders, Marquez champion)

2017: 8 wins (2 winning riders, Marquez champion)

2018: 10 wins (2 winning riders, Marquez champion)

2019: 12 wins (1 winning rider, Marquez champion)

2020: 0 wins

2021: 3 wins (1 winning rider)

2022: 0 wins

2023: 1 win*

* After eight rounds.

“No night-and-day solution”

The pragmatic Puig warned Honda’s return to the top is likely to be just as gradual as its decline - with the current spate of rider ♚injuries making the process even harder.

“It's clear that i♈t's not a good moment. I mean, when you have three riders injured and in and out of hospital, and with the problems[with the bike] that we are facing lately. To turn the thing from night to day, I don't think it's going to be possible,” said the former grand prix winner.

“The truth is that we are facing problems not only this year, but the past years al꧂so. So it's really not been easy at all. We still could not find a clear solution.

“It's not that we are not trying. But it's that we are not really going to the point [root cause] and solving it. The situation is really not good at all 😼and the only thing we can do is keep trying to♈ somehow come out of this moment.”

“We are quite b🙈ack. It's obvious and there's no question mark. So to fix it from now in two months, frankly speak༒ing, I think will not be an easy task to do,” he added.

“It's clear that if you don't try things in life, you never know. But it will be very, very optimistic to think thജat we can have, let's say, a high-performance bike in two months.

“The only thing that we can do - and I know tꦚhat they [HRC] are tryౠing to do - is to try things and to see if we can really go to the point [of our problems] because we never got there in in the past.”

The most obvious sign of HRC’s efforts to improve have been the signing of ex-Suzuki technical boss Ken Kawauchi and the i😼ntroduction of a Kalex-built chassis.

But Kawauchi’s influence will nꦉot be seen until the 2024 machine, while the degree of design freedom (if any) Kalex was given is unclear.

Were Kalex simply told to manufacture a chassis exactly to a spec 🐠provided by Honda, or were they allowed to sugg💯est and implement changes?

Wღorryingly, after several rounds on the Kalex, Maꦉrc Marquez and then Takaaki Nakagami began switching back to the HRC version.

“We have to react faster”

While Honda riders have spoken of a lack of feeling, rear grip and low speed turning, forcing them to take big risk𓃲s just to stay in touch with their rivals, in cultural terms it’s the opposite: The Europeans are prepared to take greater enginee✃ring risks than the Japanese.

“The [European] manufacturers in recent years were very a♏ggressive,” Puig said. “They took a lot of risks. Risk means that you can make mistakes, bu✤t they accept the mistakes.

“Probably the Japanese tradition is more conservative and w🐼ith the new regulations [reducing testing] they should probably - based on the results, because the results are the indicator of what's going on - change a little bit the approach.

“[The Japanese] have very, ve๊ry good things. But probably they have to change and probabl🍃y be more reactive than they used to be.

“It’s true that♔ it's more difficult to react f💞ast if you are in Japan than if you are in Europe. But finally, it’s like this. I mean we have to try to be faster and react faster.”

• Keith Huewen: Hon﷽da might well lose Marc Marquez, but has the magic gone?

The other option to consider is that Marquez, after so many injuries and at 30-years of age, might not be able to deliver the old magic that patched over Honda's deficiencies&nbs🤡p;in the past.

The Spaniard, who t🤪ook pole position and a Sprint podium before slamming int꧟o Miguel Oliveira in the Portimao season opener, feels the opening practice timesheets at favourite tracks like Sachsenring suggest otherwise.

“As you could see in Practice 1, my natural riding is there and I ꩵwas in second ꧅position,” Marquez explained at the German GP, where he had been unbeaten in 11 prevous occasions.

“Bu✨t the problem is that when you hav💟e that natural riding [advantage] at a circuit, you arrive very quickly at the limit, but then later the others start to arrive at your limit and then pass that limit.

“So [after] I was struggling. Normally with the Ho𝓰nda that I remember we were very fast in the slow corn🐻ers, in the turning. But now with this Honda, we are very fast on the fast corners, like for example Mugello, but we are losing on that turning.”

Marquez, contracted to Honda un🐷til the end of next season, hasn't w෴on a MotoGP race since Misano 2021.

Tea🔥m-mate Joan Mir is aiming to return from injury after the summer break, with Alex Rins' comeback from a broken leg TBC.

MotoGP's&nbs♛p;concessions rules could be tweaked to aid Honda and Yamaha in returning to a more competitive level against the European brands.