Honda has enjoyed a steady improvement in its MotoGP results of late, and currently sits second in the manufacturers' championship behind only runaway leader Ducati.
But the most successful of its riders is not at the factory team. Instead, LCR satellite rider Johann Zarco has led the way, scoring the team's first win since the 2023 Grand Prix of the Americas with victory at Le Mans last month.
With 97 points so far this year, Zarco sits fifth overall and took a second consecutive podium at the British GP, finishing second to Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi. His other two best results were fourth-place finishes in the Argentina sprint and the Qatar GP.
Meanwhile, factory riders Luca Marini and Joan Mir sit 13th and 19th in the championship respectively, both with a best finish of eighth.
So what is the problem facing the factory riders, how is Zarco finding a way around it, and what is the solution?
The problem
The biggest problem facing all the Honda riders this season is chatter: a specific type of vibration which causes the bike to lose grip and affects braking.
At the British GP, HRC test rider Aleix Espargaro said it is "part of a Honda rider's life" and it is affecting all the riders.
Mir explained: "Long corners when you release the brakes we have this. When you want to make this last push into the corner, the bike reacts by vibrating. This is something which doesn't allow us to exploit the good things of this bike, the chassis and this, because we have this vibration, then you can't turn.
"The good thing is that we have Aleix here and he can try something and get more focus on this stuff, because in Le Mans when Taka [Nakagami] was there, we didn't have any vibration for this type of corners.
"So everything they tried was difficult to say something because the vibration was not there. But here it is, so hopefully we improve a bit that thing for the next rounds."
Espargaro agreed that the characteristics of the French GP circuit meant that there was no vibration, and so any work done by fellow test rider Taka Nakagami could not be targeted at the issue.
"It makes our lives very difficult," said Espargaro. "It's difficult, because we did many brainstorms with Romano [Albesiano, Honda's technical lead], with Taka we talk a lot, with Mir, and we don't understand really where this vibration can be coming from.
"This is why we accelerate the carbon swingarm test, because this is something new that can help and this is why I'm here racing with this. But the biggest problem with the vibration is that we are not able to understand where it's coming from.
"It's really a nightmare, because we're trying many things. My thought is that it's coming from the engine, but it's very difficult if it's coming from the engine to improve for this year. So we're trying everything."
Zarco's workaround
Zarco is the only rider who has so far been able to ride around the issue.
Though Marini - injured since in a Suzuka 8 Hour testing crash - suggested on the Sunday of the British GP that Zarco had "another thing that I wanted to try in the warm-up, but obviously it was wet, so I wasn't able to try it", Espargaro said he believes Zarco is able to adapt his riding style to make the difference.
"[Johann] is able to ride with a big amount of chattering that the others we are not able to," Espargaro said. "Especially when there is a new tyre, when you have to really go into the limit, he is able to ride with this vibration without feeling it.
"It's very difficult, because the body and the throttle, when you feel this vibration, you want to pick up the bike so the bike turns less, and he is not doing that.
"He is able to carry speed in the apex. So he's really riding in a high level, really high level."
However, Espargaro also emphasised that this was "not the solution".
"The solution is that the engineers and myself, the test team, we find the solution to the chattering if we want to win races.
"We are trying our best, but until this day arrives what we have to do the riders is try to adapt as much as possible, and Johann proved once again [in finishing second] that he's the best at adapting to this chattering."
Zarco himself was coy about the issue, but said: "We have a lot of vibration when the tyre changes a lot, almost every lap, but I could adapt a bit the riding.
"I'm happy that when I begin to have it, I adapt without losing speed, and finally it pays off."
The solution
So, what is the solution? For now, it looks to be a compromise.
Espargaro revealed that Honda is testing a carbon swingarm, as opposed to the aluminium part it had been using previously, and said that after the British GP he believes it is ready to roll out to the factory riders - although he was careful not to overpromise on its potential.
He used the aluminium swingarm in qualifying before switching to the carbon model for Saturday's sprint, and then back to aluminium for the main race.
Asked whether it made a difference, he said: "It's difficult to say really. The conditions in the qualifying and in the sprint were very different, so it's difficult to compare.
"I don't think there is the solution, for me it's a little bit smoother and it can go in the right direction, but I don't think it's the solution to our problems. I had a lot of chattering in qualifying, for me qualifying was a nightmare, I was very slow.
"Then, in the sprint, I had a little bit less, but still too much."
So that might help the riders with some of their woes. But for now, it is Zarco making the biggest difference.
Asked what Zarco was doing better, Mir said: "If you look at the laptimes that Johann was doing and the laptimes that I was doing, they are not different.
"It's just he is able to do it in another position. In the first race [start, which was abandoned], he made a bad start and he was on the back, and I'm sure that this would change his race completely. You start to fight with the others and this is what happened to me.
"On the other hand, if you see his pace on the practice when everyone is in the same positions, his pace is not better than the other Hondas. Just he's able to make a bit the difference for the position that he's in and probably because [of] the experience, how he's able to have the set-up, he has everything under control."
