The saga of Marc Marquez’s now stormy marriage to the Honda RC213V continues. As practice for the 2015 Catalunya GP began, the Big Question was this: Has Honda been able to implement countermeasures that restore controllability to corner entry and exit? In the past, Marquez has braked with the rear tire in the air, deftly juggling the bike’s center of mass to be directly behind the front tire footprint. At the last instant, he allows the rear end to swing out slightly as he sets the tire down with the bike already in a sliding, back end hung out attitude. Bravo! We love to see him snatch order from chaos in this way, corner after corner. As he comes on throttle at his usual fantastic angle of lean, his back tire smoothly edges outward under fine throttle, not destructively spinning, but rather squirming sideways. That turns the bike. Then he lifts it decisively to accelerate hard. Whatever is changed (HRC’s Shuhei Nakamoto says definitively: “It is not the engine”), the above sequence no longer works as it should. When the tire comes up, it is no longer as easy to manage—Marquez says the bike snaps abruptly to one side. 
Theories of causation abound: the elevated horsepower needed to put down the “Ducati mutiny;” the engine is no longer smooth off the bottom; the crankshaft is too light, no longer providing enough braking stability; and unspecified changes to the front tire have introduced directional instability during braking. Let’s take a closer look at a few of these: 1) Reduced engine smoothness. In the past, this has been the outcome of powering-up the engine. All makers have experience with this, but Honda has made a career of it. From 2004 onward, when Honda’s chassis team settled the bike a bit, the engine group would pour in more bucking broncos. 2) Crankshaft too light, reducing braking stability. Hmm, Yamaha, Suzuki, and now Ducati have reverse-rotating engines (opposite to wheel rotation). By reducing the bike’s gyro-effect stabilization, this ought to reduce braking stability. Honda, whose engine still rotates forward, ought to have braking stability to spare because wheel and crank gyro effects add rather than cancel. 3) Unspecified changes to the front tire. Many riders have described the side-to-side hunting of a bias-construction front tire (the bias era ended 30 years ago) under maximum braking. This occurs because as slippage begins between footprint and pavement, the sliding rubber loses directional preference, and also perhaps because high tire forces generate cyclic carcass buckling. I could see something of this kind affect one of the Ducatis; its front tire definitely hunted from side-to-side at a rate of about twice per second. Yet the bike was not upset by this; it appeared stable. Yes, the rider was not Marquez, braking in Marquez’s style. 
Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo won the long drag race to the first turn, but Marquez managed to start nearly as well, maintaining a close 2nd. Was this an easy pace, enabled by unspecified changes made by the team? Was this a desperation pace, as Marquez described his first season (“Every lap was like qualifying…”)? Then on lap 3, as both riders were braking, Marquez’s front tire seemed to give two little stutters, he lifted (nearly taking out Lorenzo in the process), and ended up in the gravel. Lorenzo led, alone, pulling away. The Suzukis showed themselves to be more mature than I had expected. They lacked the sustained pace to run at the front, but they maintained a highly creditable pace. By lap 4, Aleix Espargaro had risen to 4th, then 3rd on lap 6 as Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso went out. Dani Pedrosa on the other HRC Honda soon dropped the Suzuki to 4th. Lorenzo’s intense smoothness achieved his largest lead—2.268 seconds—on lap 12. Then came a period of constancy in which the two Yamaha men (Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi) were separated by two seconds, after which a definite attack from Rossi began to erode the gap on lap 18. On lap 20, with Lorenzo’s lead down to 1.3 seconds, Aleix Espargaro graveled-out. I was sorry to see his fabulous run ended, but both he and his team have now taken the true measure of the task and have the data from which to correct deficiencies. The Suzukis looked “busy” and chattery in practice, suggesting that they were not as well hooked up as they would like to be. 
At this point, Athina Forward Racing’s Stefan Bradl had risen to 9th, and he eventually finished 8th, the top finisher in the Open class. He, from whom so much was expected just a couple of years ago, is now a clear example of what happens when a good talent is no longer with a top team; it hurts. Riding can only overcome so much. As he made his bid to reach top level, his team manager commented that he had yet to learn “the final phase”—to lift the machine on exit and enter the high acceleration phase, finishing the corner. This makes me remember the words of Tom Sykes’ crew chief Marcel Duinker. He said that when the rider cannot make the bike steer, he must attempt to complete the corner at high lean angle, turning gradually. This suggests that Bradl failed to develop Marquez’s method of concentrating the steering at the apex (what Cal Crutchlow called “Honda’s V-shaped line”) by steering with the flexible edge of the rear tire. In reviewing old race notes, I find that Miguel Duhamel may have developed this technique much earlier. Many things were tried in the late 1990s to make the unsteerable Honda RC45 Superbike go around corners—raising the engine, developing a special Michelin front tire, etc. Finally, Miguel found that if he leaned the bike way over, he could make the back tire—normally “too planted” to spin—go sideways fast enough to change direction, yet without tearing up the tire. I saw this process in Daytona’s old turn 5. At any rate, as Rossi advanced, it was clear that he was pushing hard because his tires were giving the little incipient slips that indicate sincere effort. And Lorenzo’s lead was disappearing. Lorenzo accepted a higher level of risk to stay clear, increasing his lead a bit on lap 23. He says his bike was moving around but at no time did he display obvious slips. So very smooth, with such fluid transitions. 
After 25 laps, it was Jorge Lorenzo by 0.855 seconds in a well-judged, professional win over a still-potent Valentino Rossi. Nearly 20 seconds back came Dani Pedrosa, in 3rd. Bear in mind that Pedrosa is not on the same chassis or setup as Marquez, so no valid comparisons between their outcomes can be made. Andrea Iannone and Bradley Smith were 4th and 5th, respectively, while Maverick Vinales on the other Suzuki persisted to 6th. How quickly it all can change. Last year, Honda was dominant to the point of throwing in question Yamaha’s whole long and low bike setup, and its corner speed methodology—even with Valentino’s studious modifications to his own performance. This year, Yamaha’s problems with braking stability have abated, and Honda’s changes to their own equipment have torpedoed their top rider’s style. Conclusion? A successful rider and machine can be an imposing edifice, but for all we know, this is a house of cards that any small wrong change can bring down. We get to see Honda work under pressure through the rest of this season. 
Quotable: Jorge Lorenzo “This was my hardest win of the season, but Qatar, Austin and Argentina were tougher when it comes to racing. To be honest, the last 10 laps of today‘s race were probably one of the most hard and intense laps of my career. Valentino was very fast and knowing that the track was really hot and there was less grip than yesterday, I’m happy with the results. My bike was working a bit worse than yesterday when I was able to ride 1:41s, but that wasn‘t possible today. For Valentino it was the opposite, he almost always reaches this incredible level of performance on Sunday. When he reduced the gap from 2.0s to 1.4s I was really worried that I would lose this race. I needed to push and risk more while the bike was already moving a lot, which is what I did on the last 10 laps. After yesterday‘s practice I expected, maybe not an easy victory, but more distance between me and the rider in second from the middle of the race onwards. I was able to keep my rhythm and stay focused and I really want to thank the team for their efforts and congratulate them with the fourth consecutive victory.” Results: 2015 MotoGP Catalunya
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Points | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
| 1 | LORENZO Jorge | 99 | SPA | 25 | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | 42'53.208 |
| 2 | ROSSI Valentino | 46 | ITA | 20 | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | +0.885 |
| 3 | PEDROSA Dani | 26 | SPA | 16 | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | +19.455 |
| 4 | IANNONE Andrea | 29 | ITA | 13 | Ducati Team | Ducati | +24.925 |
| 5 | SMITH Bradley | 38 | GBR | 11 | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | +27.782 |
| 6 | VINALES Maverick | 25 | SPA | 10 | Team Suzuki Ecstar | Suzuki | +29.559 |
| 7 | REDDING Scott | 45 | GBR | 9 | Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS | Honda | +36.424 |
| 8 | BRADL Stefan | 6 | GER | 8 | Athina Forward Racing | Yamaha Forward | +42.103 |
| 9 | PETRUCCI Danilo | 9 | ITA | 7 | Pramac Racing | Ducati | +49.350 |
| 10 | BAUTISTA Alvaro | 19 | SPA | 6 | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | +52.569 |
| 11 | MILLER Jack | 43 | AUS | 5 | CWM LCR Honda | Honda | +53.666 |
| 12 | LAVERTY Eugene | 50 | IRE | 4 | Aspar MotoGP Team | Honda | +55.765 |
| 13 | BAZ Loris | 76 | FRA | 3 | Athina Forward Racing | Yamaha Forward | +55.832 |
| 14 | DI MEGLIO Mike | 63 | FRA | 2 | Avintia Racing | Ducati | +1'09.037 |
| 15 | DE ANGELIS Alex | 15 | RSM | 1 | Athina Forward Racing | ART | +1'25.263 |
| 16 | BARBERA Hector | 8 | SPA | 0 | Avintia Racing | Ducati | +1 lap |
| 17 | ESPARGARO Aleix | 41 | SPA | 0 | Team Suzuki Ecstar | Suzuki | DNF |
| 18 | HAYDEN Nicky | 69 | USA | 0 | Aspar MotoGP Team | Honda | DNF |
| 19 | MELANDRI Marco | 33 | ITA | 0 | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | DNF |
| 20 | DOVIZIOSO Andrea | 4 | ITA | 0 | Ducati Team | Ducati | DNF |
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