• Chronicle Bagnaia forgets his accident in Ibiza with a victory that returns him to the World Cup

At Assen, the first rider on a Japanese bike was

Joan Mir

, who finished eighth.

This Sunday at Silverstone, the first rider on a Japanese bike was

Álex Rins

, seventh.

In the last two MotoGP races, never seen before.

The Asian brands that have dominated the World Cup since the 1970s have disappeared, since the decline of Gilera and MV Agusta.

How did it happen?

The engineers consulted speak of multiple factors, although above all it is always the same: money.

The economic mess derived from the pandemic has caused companies such as Honda or Yamaha to reduce their investment in competition and others, such as Suzuki, have directly decided to abandon the championship.

But there is more or, rather, there are more concrete elements.

Because this decrease in budgets has caused the Japanese bikes to be the slowest in each circuit and that has a reason: aerodynamics.

In recent years, European brands, especially Ducati, have offered innovations that Asian brands have not been able to copy or have arrived too late.

The most important of them: the holeshot.

The damping system that allows the motorcycles to go down and up depending on whether they are in a curve or straight was a revolution from Formula 1 that Ducati implemented before the pandemic and that Honda or Yamaha never welcomed.

For many reasons: it harmed safety, increased spending and, above all, it was not transferable to street bikes.

They reluctantly made their own versions, but they were never effective and this is what the results look like.

As a victory for the Asian brands, that MotoGP has banned this system from 2023;

It can only be used on departures.

As a defeat, that Ducati is already going further with its wings, especially with the rear wing, in which it continues to test things.

Too much weight on the leader

Although the problem with Honda and Yamaha may lie in their philosophy.

As the engineer of one of the brands admits, his system is based on a very clear hierarchy of drivers and that doesn't always work.

In the case of Honda, for example, it worked perfectly until Marc Márquez crashed in Jerez and began a rehabilitation that is still going on: now the other representatives of the factory suffer the consequences and, in fact, yesterday they finished fourteenth (

Pol Espargaró

), seventeenth (

Álex Márquez

) and nineteenth (

Stefan Bradl

).

In the case of Yamaha, more of the same.

All the hardships were hidden by

Fabio Quartararo

's title last year and his excellent start this season, but in which he has failed in two consecutive races, the company has entered a crisis.

Yesterday at Silverstone, with the victory of

Pecco Bagnaia

, the Frenchman was eighth and his teammate, Franco Morbidelli, could only be fifteenth.

In fact, in the World Championship the first riders from a Japanese factory behind Quartararo are Joan Mir and Álex Rins, eighth and ninth, with the Suzuki about to disappear, and the following is the injured

Marc Márquez

, in thirteenth place.

Quartararo can save honor.

It is very possible that a Japanese brand will win the World Cup again, that it will continue the Asian streak with a single exception since 1975 - Casey Stoner's title with Ducati in 2007 -.

But it is evident that there in the East they have problems.

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