The 2020 world champion moved to the factory Honda squad for this season after Suzuki abandoned the championship at the end of last year.
Mir is the fifth different rider in six years to join Marc Marquez at Honda, after Dani Pedrosa in 2018, Lorenzo in 2019, Alex Marquez in 2020 and Espargaro in 2021/2022.
Pedrosa’s last year was the Spanish rider’s first without a win in MotoGP, while Lorenzo’s career in MotoGP was effectively ended by his troubles at Honda. Alex Marquez moved to Ducati Gresini after struggling for the last two years with LCR Honda and managed to reach the podium in just two races.
Mir’s season so far has been very disappointing, having scored just five points from the first five races in a generally difficult year for Honda, despite Alex Rins’ unexpected win at the Grand Prix of the Americas aboard the Team LCR RC213V.
After his double crash in the French GP, Mir admitted he was “afraid” of suffering the same fate as Lorenzo and Espargaro at Honda, given the difficulties he is facing.
“Definitely I’m scared, because I want to win,” he said. “It’s very difficult for a rider like me to see himself in the position I’m in.”
“My motivation is to win races, to be on the podium, to be in the group of the best, that’s what gives me the fuel to do it. I haven’t had this fuel for a long time.”
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Honda introduced their Kalex chassis at the French GP for Marc Marquez and Mir, with the former noting the new chassis was a marked improvement, although other areas of the bike have yet to be addressed.
Marquez managed to qualify second and fight for the podium in both races at Le Mans, but Mir admitted that both he and Honda “don’t understand what I need to be strong”.
“What I would like to do, I can’t do,” he explained. “I think at the moment the team doesn’t understand what I need to be strong.”
“Besides, I don’t understand what I have to do to ride this bike in a better way and to perform well, because I try to ride differently, to create a different style.”
“But at the moment it’s not my natural style, we’re not in the position where we want to carry the speed into the corners and open the gas a little earlier.”
“Every time I’m wide, I open up the trajectory. At the moment we’re in trouble. This is a fact.”
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Marc Fleury
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