After a difficult 2024 season, 'there's not going to be any excuses' for Team HRC in the 2025 World Superbike season.
Since Honda Racing Corporation returned to World Superbikes in 2020 Team HRC have not reached their potential. HRC came back with a statement in 2020 when they signed Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
After Bautista and Haslam left HRC signed Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge. The two Spaniards have also had little to no success in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons.
In the 2024 season, HRC has hit an all-time low since their WorldSBK return as Vierge sits in 16th and Lecuona is in 18th. The best result for the team in 2024 was 7th place at Misano and Portimao.
HRC Team Manager, Jose Escamez, spoke to WorldSBK.com about their difficulties in 2024. However, Escamez hopes that Team HRC will turn a corner in 2025 and claims there are 'no excuses' for Honda next year.
“I have no doubt about it. We are working already on our 2025 strategy and I think, so far, we’re close to getting it all defined," Escamez said about 2025. "I personally think that it will be so much better because the company has been putting such a huge effort to turn to the places where we want to be.
"There’s not going to be any excuses. We are quite honest with ourselves and we know that it’s going to be really challenging, even more than in the past probably because the situation we are facing right now, it could be seen as worse than before. The season is not over yet and we’re not going to give up easily. I’m quite sure about this because the company has made some movements on the strategy for next year which I think will be in the right direction.
“It’s never easy to make a prediction about how it’s going to be in 12 months because when I started this season, I thought we are going to be much better than right now. I have a positive way of thinking and I can see that we are going to be much, much better and at least not in the situation we are facing so far. There are still a lot of things to do and the season isn’t over. We’re not going to stop until we are fighting for wins or the Championship, which is our only target.”
