The 2020 world champion will remain with Honda for the next two seasons, as announced by Motorsport.com a few days ago, although Joan Mir continued to be vague on the subject on Thursday, ahead of this year’s Dutch Grand Prix weekend, on the legendary Assen circuit.
“The priority is to stay with Honda, for about a year,” Mir said when asked about the renewal with the Tokyo manufacturer. “I signed for Honda at the worst time in the history of the brand,” Mir recalled, speaking of him signing with HRC in April 2022, when he was still a Suzuki rider.
“I think my story with Honda is not over yet. So if I leave Honda I will have the feeling of having failed”, clarified the Majorcan, who is only 26 years old despite having already accumulated a great deal of experience in the premier class.
Although Mir would have liked to improve and progress the development of the RC213V before making the decision to continue with the project, he is aware that there are risks. “Obviously I would like to see if the improvements work before renewing, but this is MotoGP, and if you wait you’re out,” he continued, aware that the 2025 starting grid is being defined.
In addition to the economic conditions that Honda maintains for Mir, which no MotoGP team with free seats can reach, the Majorcan saw positive signs in the Jerez tests, when he told Honda that they would have to abandon the development path they had undertaken up until that moment for what he considered right. The technicians listened to him and this convinced the pilot.
However, development has stalled a bit and there have been no new developments, and when compared to the speed at which Yamaha is working, this becomes even more worrying. “If we had new parts we would do some testing, like Yamaha does. We don’t need to run to do the set-up. I don’t expect it to get very far. I think in September we will have important things though,” he reported.
“I think what comes will be better. I’m sure we’ll be close. This season we haven’t had much luck because the engine that was chosen slowed us down,” concluded the Majorcan.
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