In the first thirteen Grands Prix of the season, HRC riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini have never both finished a race in the points, and the Spaniard’s eleventh and Italian’s twelfth are their best results of the season. So last weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, despite looking like another disaster for the Japanese armada, turned out to be good news.
“I was last at the start,” Joan Mir told Motorsport.com, “I got hit at the start and found myself last, I’ll pull the ears of ‘Raulito’ (in reference to Raul Fernandez),” added the Honda rider.
Interestingly, a few minutes earlier, the Aprilia Trackhouse rider, in his meeting with the media, had said that it was Mir who hit him. “What?! hahaha, no. At the start he hit me and left me last, the images clearly show it,” replied the Honda rider.
On Saturday Mir complained of a strong vibration in the rear of his RC213V, but on Sunday his performance improved significantly. “In the race I was better, I had a good pace. The difference between Saturday and Sunday is that we improved the vibrations a little bit. That was the big change,” he explained.
“I’m happy because it was a real result, it’s not the typical 12th place because it rained and a lot of people came in to change bikes,” he recalled of the race two weeks earlier at the same circuit, a weekend Mir missed due to acute gastroenteritis.
“At the beginning of the season, as a real result, I could have finished 12th (Portugal and Jerez) or 13th (Qatar), but 11th place this Sunday is a real result and we have to be happy, I overtook many riders,” he said before admitting that “it is also true that some riders crashed in front, Pecco I think,” referring to Brad Binder, Pedro Acosta and Pecco Bagnaia, who in that order crashed when they were in front of him.
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“I’m happy because I was able to pass many bikes that were better than ours, I made many overtaking moves and I returned to having a growing race, which is what characterised me in the past,” he added, referring above all to his time with Suzuki and that unforgettable 2020, when he was champion.
“The truth is that I enjoyed myself, we did a good job. We must remember that for me this was the first weekend, since I couldn’t race the previous one and that everyone comes from another Grand Prix and the test a fortnight ago”, he stressed.
“To have managed this pace and to finish half a minute behind (33″062 from the winner Enea Bastianini), when last week they finished a minute behind (Johann Zarco, first Honda, 12th at 1’02″637), shows that we have improved.”
“I felt comfortable, if I had had a better pace from the beginning, in a faster group, I would have been much further ahead. I’m happy, we have made a step forward”, replied the Majorcan, who explained the keys to this improvement.
“The aerodynamics and one thing they brought for the swingarm that worked. These two things and the work that Santi (Hernandez, his track engineer) and my team did inside the box, understanding what to do with the vibration, which was impossible and they solved it, allowed me to ride the bike and be more competitive on the track,” said Mir, visibly pleased with the “real” improvement he experienced with the RC213V at Misano.
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