Mir and Marini look ahead to opening Grand Prix as testing concludes
Lusail International CircuitJoan Mir and Luca Marini worked until the very end of the ultimate day of testing, the pair overcoming illness to produce the maximum amount of data for the Repsol Honda Team.
The Repsol Honda Team pairing of Joan Mir and Luca Marini showed their determination, working under the floodlights of the Lusail International Circuit to prepare for their upcoming campaign. A day of red flags made every lap important as the MotoGP grid continued to increase the pace in the build up to the season – a new unofficial circuit record being set in the process.
Joan Mir spent the final day battling illness, sapping his strength and limiting his time on the Repsol Honda Team RC213V machine. Completing 32 laps, Mir ends the Qatar Test in 19th. His best time, a 1’52.457 set on the second day, was 1.1 seconds faster than his Qualifying time from the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix just three months ago. Had his condition been better, Mir feels he could have lapped in the 1’51s. A fall at Turn 13 late in the evening ended Mir’s test somewhat prematurely but he was unharmed in the fall. Having made impressive progress already, the #36 was left somewhat disappointed at being unable to fully capitalise on the available time to find the remaining tenths. He will now return home to begin his final preparations for the start of the season.
Having recovered from his illness yesterday, Marini was back to full fitness and the final day of testing was another productive affair for Luca Marini as he completed 60 laps to bring his total from the two days in Qatar to 111 laps. Ending with a best time of 1’52.677, Marini ended the night just behind his teammate. Continuing to work through a number of items for HRC, Marini was left content with what he and the team achieved despite a truncated start to the second day. He remains focused on the work that still remains before the start of the season. Just days now separate the #10 from his first race as a factory Honda rider.
Now the attentions of riders and the entire team turn to the opening race of the 21-round MotoGP World Championship season, scheduled to start at the Lusail International Circuit on March 08 – 10. After Qatar, the season will see the Repsol Honda Team travel around the world as they battle against the 20 other riders on the grid.
Today I woke up feeling very tired and in general not feeling great. After the first exit I was feeling really unwell and had to stop to try and recover some strength. I was able to rest and go back out on track but my condition was not 100% so we could only do a few things. Then on the last exit I had a fast crash which meant we couldn’t do the practice starts, so it was quite a complicated day. It would have been good to have this final day at our best, but we have been able to make good progress over the course of these tests. Now we turn our attention to the race and trying to take the maximum result from it.
This test has allowed us to understand many things and we were able to try everything that was on the list for us and for HRC. We made a big change on the bike today which lost us some time in the first hour. Even like this, we have been able to get a lot of data and we can prepare well for the GP. Each day I have been able to improve my feeling with the bike but we still need to do a bit of work to improve our performance over one lap.
