HRC boss Camier details team’s work under WorldSBK super-concessions

Honda’s WorldSBK team has appeared to be limited by its technical ability to perform quite as well as its main rivals ever since it arrived back with a new bike in WorldSBK.

That relative struggle in real race results - for a full direct from Japan Honda team that runs an engine that some rivals say is even faster than a Ducati - may be about to undergo a step change in its results. Quite a big step change.

Honda and BMW are early beneficiaries of the new Superconcession rules for 2023, which allow each manufacturer to declare one point of their production derived machine that would like to alter - but only when their results are ‘bad’ enough.

Honda wants to make chassis changes which go beyond the small - literal - degree of adjustment that is allowed in the rules for certain key elements of the chassis.

At San Juan, we spoke to HRC Team Manager Leon Camier about what has been done already, and what is expected for 2023, when the new regulation officially begins.

“We just have more adjustment for the header pipe and the pivot position, basically,” he said of the chassis that was in Argentina. “What we have right now is limited but, basically, what we will have, hopefully, for Mandalika will be an adjusted version, like a machined version, that will more space.” Literally more space for further location and therefore geometry adjustment of the header pipe position and rear pivot point position, that is.

Previously, these things could have been adjusted within the existing rules but not by much. From Portimao onwards Honda could go beyond the few millimetres of fore and aft or up and down adjustment allowed in the previous rules, and then it will be allowed to bring a modified chassis with bigger slots cut in it for even