There still isn’t a successor to Marc Márquez at Repsol Honda, with about two weeks remaining until the first MotoGP pre-season test for 2024. Pol Espargaró was approached by the team but chose to stay with the Pierer Mobility Group and the KTM project—albeit as a test rider.
In the opinion of the Spanish rider, the Japanese team has a problem on their hands to address with the existing needs: ‘They have a problem for one year, this is clear. Because Marc leaves in the middle of the contract parentheses, so they are in trouble with that. And they need one guy for one year, and it’s clear they need to choose a guy with experience, that knows other bikes and that knows how to improve the bike’.
Although he believes he would be an ideal candidate for the position and could possibly succeed, Espargaró emphasized his decision to stay with the KTM group: ‘I think I would have been a good option for that project, but I really want to see myself in a few years – I don’t know, maybe I would go to Honda and then the results were good because you never know, Honda is Honda. And then I would stay in 2025, 2026. You never know, because I really believe after this winter I’m gonna be back to the good level. But it is what it is and I choose to stay. I respect Honda so much and I’m super grateful with Alberto [Puig, team manager], he is a good guy and he does a great job’.