No more money to transform Honda’s fortunes

Honda will not spend more money to try and claim a rare MotoGP world championship victory in 2010.

Severely affected by the impact of the global economic crisis, Honda will have no budget increase to try and stop Yamaha and Ducati’s recent domination of the MotoGP world championship.

Honda has yet to win in the 800cc era and its factory RC212V machine has been no match for Yamaha’s YZR-M1 or Ducati’s Desmosedici.

Ducati has won 21 races since the start of 2007 and Yamaha 24 in the same period.

HRC though has seen the RC212V win just seven races and the once dominant Japanese factory has won only one premier class world title since 2003 when Nicky Hayden triumphed in the last 990cc four-stroke series in ’06.

Asked whether it would take larger cash investment from HRC to win back the world title, HRC boss Shuhei Nakamoto said: “There is no increase in budget from Honda.

“Maybe it will be the same as this year, which makes it difficult for our machine development. Even if we had the same budget as the US Government it would not be enough!”