Given the time Honda had to show evidence of developing a stronger bike for the upcoming season, Marc Márquez’s departure from Honda is seen by many as a major setback for HRC. In the end, the rider decided to break his contract with the great Japanese while there was still one more season to complete. Alberto Puig said he was’very disappointed’ by the rider’s departure.
When asked by AS if he considered Márquez’s departure to be “a failure,” the team manager responded in Spanish, saying: “Well, on a personal level I’m really upset because the relationship I have with Marc is very excellent. It’s clear from a business standpoint that we were unable to produce the bike he required. It’s also true that these years have been terrible. We chose his worst years because everything with the shoulder was really difficult for both him and us.
Puig claimed that a number of events combined until the rider made the decision to dismount: “In the end, there has been an accumulation of circumstances, almost all of them negative, which have not helped at all.” I believe that things would have turned out differently if Marc hadn’t been in that accident in Jerez. If he hadn’t stopped, he would have continued riding, and the bike unquestionably would have changed. Of course, it’s not a good idea to talk about everything that happened in the past.
Despite the fact that Márquez has already committed to Gresini, Puig says he still intends to defeat him and hopes to see #93 perform well and even win:
When I have been with a rider who has left I have always been happy with his results. And in Marc’s case, probably even more so, because of the way he has treated me on a personal level. Obviously, he is a champion and all the fans of the motorbike world and all of us who feel involved in this, in my case having also been a rider, know that if he did well and won again it would be a milestone and, of course, I would be happy. I will be happy if Marquez wins again, but I want to beat him. That doesn’t take away from the fact that I work at Honda, that we have to develop a bike, that we are going to have riders and that our objective is to win, whoever it is.