The Honda riders arrived in Austria explaining that Honda has prepared a new engine configuration for the RC213V as part of the package of improvements it intends to introduce in the second part of the season, especially in view of the two tests and two Grands Prix scheduled at Misano from next week until mid-September.
At the end of the day, Joan Mir said he was partially satisfied with the improvements, also because in the morning FP1 he managed to place himself in the top 10: “A little better, to be honest. Today’s result does not reflect my potential”, said the Majorcan.
“On this track it’s important to have everything in place and to be precise. In the morning I managed to be competitive. My lap times on used tyres are better than in other races, there’s a bit more potential. But when it was time to put on new tyres the yellow flags came out, they cancelled my lap and I found Nakagami stopped at Turn 9 looking at the view. I couldn’t do a good lap, this was my Friday,” said the Honda rider.
This weekend Mir is running a new engine configuration that has made a good impression.
“The truth is that it has allowed me to feel better when I use the gas, and it works better. It is not a revolution, but an evolution that will help us to be more competitive in the next races.”
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“With the changes we encountered some problems during the day that we had to solve as we went along. When you put on the new tyres and push the bike to the limit, you see that in the first time attack the bike was vibrating, which is also happening to us with this new set-up,” he added.
“There is more room for improvement with these new settings, I don’t expect to get into Q2 this Saturday, but I expect to be able to do better times and be closer,” he said.
“The goal this weekend is to see what our real potential is with this package at the moment, I think we will be closer. Today, on used tyres, I was able to do some laps behind people that I didn’t see on other weekends and here I was able to do some laps behind other riders. That allowed me to do some decent laps, which I haven’t done for a long time.”
“A couple of races ago they explained to us what the roadmap is for this final part of the season and the truth is that it is quite good. The theory is good, now we have to see how it works in practice, to see if we start to see improvements. It’s the right time, this morning I was already a bit ahead and in the afternoon I wasn’t able to sort things out, more because of me than the bike. Tomorrow we will try to sort things out. Tomorrow we will try to do things properly to see the reality of the bike”, concluded the Majorcan.
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