Italy,jun 2
A day of positives and complications for the Repsol Honda Team, both Luca Marini and Joan Mir aiming for solutions and progress on Sunday.
Equalling his best grid position of the year, Joan Mir achieved his target of a 1’45 to secure 17th on the grid. Providing a boost in motivation, the 2020 MotoGP World Champion lined up for the 11-lap Sprint ready to attack. Starting well, Mir soon encountered a worsening vibration issue which forced him to retire from the Sprint early. The Repsol Honda Team are currently investigating the cause to return to the track stronger on Sunday. Overall, Mir felt the aerodynamics upgrade had produced a step forward.
With a strong launch from the line, Luca Marini made up a handful of positions early on. A mistake at Turn 1 after several laps saw him lose touch with the group he had been fighting with before rallying to return to his race pace. Focusing on his own riding, the #10 completed his home race in 19th and collected important data after major setup changes to his Honda RC213V just ahead of the Sprint. Further work to refine the setting of his Repsol Honda Team machine is the primary focus for Marini and his team overnight.Both riders will be back on the grid at 14:00 Local Time on Sunday, June 02 as they prepare for the Gran Premio d’Italia. 23-laps around the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello will be demanding for rider and machine, both Marini and Mir are up for the challenge.”It was really nice to race in front of my home fans for the first time as a factory rider today. Unfortunately, it was a complicated day otherwise and we made some big changes to the bike after Qualifying and before the Sprint. This change helped my feeling, but we need to keep working on the setting to find a better bike for Sunday,” said Honda rider Luca Marini (19th).”Looking at the positive points from today we can see that this new aero package is working better. It’s a small step forward which is welcome. We made a pretty decent Qualifying, matching our best from Qatar, and not so far from first. We wanted to put everything together in the Sprint, but we had some vibrations that prevented me from riding as they were getting worse and worse and I had to retire from the race. We are checking exactly what caused this so that we can show our full potential tomorrow, ” said Honda rider Joan Mir (DNF).
