Battered and broken Honda duo linked with a seat alongside Fabio Quartararo at Yamaha: Reports

The battered and broken Honda duo of Joan Mir and Alex Rins have been linked for a surprise move to Yamaha. As reported by The Race, the two drivers are in contention to replace Franco Morbidelli should the Japanese brand wish to replace him. Both Mir and Rins are on a two-year contract with the team but it appears that there is an exit clause in place as well.

Should an opportunity open up either of the two riders could trigger that exit clause and leave Honda for Yamaha. While it is fair to note that neither of the two Japanese teams is having a good season in 2023, the situation seems to be worse in Honda.

While Yamaha has migrated to a more powerful engine and chosen a completely different design philosophy to what it conventionally did, the bike's just not competitive enough.

While the competitiveness does hold true for the second Japanese squad as well, the situation is much worse as the bike appears to be borderline dangerous to ride. In the previous German GP at Sachsenring, only one of the four riders was fit enough to take part.

Joan Mir's injury means he's out for multiple races while Alex Rins has just had a surgery which puts him out for a chunk of the season. To make things worse, the team's star rider Marc Marquez, someone who was undefeated at Sachsenring for more than a decade, opted out of racing on Sunday as he incurred five crashes during the race weekend.

The report from The Race states:

"According to The Race’s sources in the paddock, with both factory Honda rider Mir and LCR Honda rider Rins believed to have exit clauses that would allow them to replace Morbidelli should the Japanese factory decide to look elsewhere."

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Honda is looking at a bleak future in MotoGP

With the way the situation seems to be unraveling with the Japanese marque, the team is looking at a bleak future in MotoGP. Marc Marquez has shown signs of discontent within the team, especially after the disastrous weekend in Germany.

According to MotoGP pundits, the Japanese team has around three more months to show Marc if there is anything positive coming through the pipeline because if there isn't, the Spanish could look at other teams.

If at this moment, even Rins (the only race winner for the team) and Mir (a former world champion himself) trigger their exit clauses then it will leave the team in a very precarious situation.