While much speculation has been focussed on🐼 the future machinery of Pramac and VR46, LCR is the other satellite MotoGP team out of contract with its manufacturer at the end of 📖this season.

But having run Honda machinery since joining the premier class (with Casey Stoner) in 2006 - and given current LCR rider Johann Zarco is only in the first year of a 𝄹two-year (HRC) contract - a change seems unlikely.

Nevertheless, KTM made a “friendly phone call” to LCR last year, as ꦰthe Austrian factory sought to try and secure more RC16s on the grid.

“I replied that🎃 I had signed a three-year contract with Honda that will expire at the end of next year [2024],” LCR boss Lucio Cecchinello , adding:

"I've been with Honda for 18 years, it's cle🗹ar it would be difficult for me to leave. I feel like a Honda man."

But what is the current status of the LCR-Honda contract talks for 2ꦐ025?

An LCR spokesperson told ltxcn.top that ‘during the upcomin꧑g weeks’ Cecchinello will ‘approac✱h it with HRC’.

If HRC failed to reach a new agreement with LCR, it would presumably need to move Zarco alongside Luca Marini at the factory Repsol H🐟onda team to see out the second year of his contract. 

Like Zarco, Marini has signed with HRC until the end of 2025 but their team-mates - Takaaki Nakaღgami (LCR) and Joan Mir (Repsol) - are out of 🍸contract at the end of this season.