LCR Honda

LCR Honda in 2024

Pramac Ducati race winner Johann Zarco joins Takaaki Nakagami at LCR Honda this season.

The Frenchman takes over the place of 2023 LCR winner Alex Rins on the Castrol branded bike, while Nakagami starts his seventh season on the team’s Idemitsu liveried machine.

LCR Honda’s MotoGP history

Lucio Cecchinello took on rare rider and team manager duties by forming LCR (Lucio Cecchinello Racing) for his third 125GP season in 1996.

The team later expanded to a team-mate in 1998 and into the 250cc class in 2002, with a certain young rookie called Casey Stoner as one of its riders.

Cecchinello retired at the end of 2003, with seven grand prix victories, while the partnership with Stoner (who remained with LCR aside from a single 125cc campaign with Red Bull KTM) continued until the MotoGP class in 2006.

Stoner impressed with a pole and podium during his rookie MotoGP season and, when h left for Ducati and world championship glory, Honda’s single-bike project with LCR went to Carlos Checa (2007) and then Randy de Puniet.

The Frenchman put LCR back on the podium for the first time since Stoner in 2009, but six barren years followed before the team’s next silverware, by Stefan Bradl, in 2013.

2015 was a landmark season for the team, which expanded to two riders for the first time in its MotoGP history, including Cal Crutchlow, who would take the team to new heights.

On the podium in his first LCR season, spent alongside rookie Jack Miller (on the ‘RS’ bike, the Englishman made LCR history with victories at Brno and Phillip Island in 2016.

Despite Marc Marquez’s ongoing title success, riders such as Crutchlow and Dani Pedrosa were increasingly warning HRC that the RC213V was becoming more and more difficult to ride.

Pedrosa’s MotoGP wins dried up in 2017, while Crutchlow’s final victory came in Argentina 2018.

LCR’s results continued to decline after Crutchlow retired at the end of 2020, a season in which team-mate Takaaki Nakagami, Honda’s new hope for a home MotoGP star, came frustratingly close to the podium on several occasions.

The rostrum wait continues for Nakagami, who nonetheless was a close match for Alex Marquez in 2021 and 2022. But it would take until COTA 2023 and new LCR signing Alex Rins for a Honda rider other than Marc Marquez to take a MotoGP victory.

However, just a few months later, frustrated at the slow transfer of new technical parts from Repsol to LCR, including the new Kalex chassis, Rins accepted Yamaha’s offer of a return to factory status for 2024.

Zarco, signed to HRC on a two-year deal, was briefly linked with replacing Marquez at Repsol Honda, but such a change of plan was soon ruled out.