As early as the end of the 2013 GP campaign there was already talk that the Honda World Motocross team, helmed by Honda stalwart Paolo Martin, would be revamped and at the recent 2014 HRC presentation in Japan by Honda President Takanobu Ito it was made official.

Honda have already been using the Italian set-up as their chief funnel in the world championship for the past three seasons but the overhaul for 2014 has involved heavier presence of Japanese engineers and Roger Harvey, formerly Honda Motor Europe’s Off-road Racing Manager, is now HRC General Manager for the MXGP operation; essentially the new team manager.

Tighter control means smoother efficiency and less potential breakdown in the delivery and communications between Japan and Italy; in short 2014 will see Team HRC returning to the same level of presence and importance as the glorified factory days of the 1980s/1990s. The off-road investment dovetails with Honda’s latest fad for Rally and their new CRF450 Rally machine should be available by the end of the week.

“The 2014 season is an important milestone for Honda in the Motocross World Championship with the support of Honda Racing Corporation,” said Harvey. “After more and more support over the last three years, the next logical step was for a full factory presence again with Team HRC.”

“I can feel the difference to last year because we are working very closely with the factory and the Japanese engineers,” said rider Max Nagl who travelled over to Japan and to test at the Sugo circuit in October for the second year in succession. “We have more parts to test each time and we’ve improved the bike a lot already.”

Honda’s reach into other racing disciplines comes off the back of continued investment and success in MotoGP (they have won the riders title twice in the past three years). The revision of the motocross strand comes after some lacklustre results in the past two years and since Evgeny Bobryshev’s emphatic breakthrough in 2011 (his first season under the factory umbrella). The Russian’s win at Teutschenthal that year is still the last for Honda in the premier class. Last year the works CRF450R seemed to have trouble matching the Suzukis and KTMs out of the start gate. Illness and injury also interrupted the season for ‘Bobby’ and Nagl and the campaign reached a nadir in the heat of Lausitzring for the German GP when both riders needed to pit with exhaustion.

Photo by HRC