Straight back to work for the Repsol Honda Team in Mugello
Autodromo Internazionale del MugelloAn intense burst of action with back-to-back races and a test for Joan Mir and Luca Marini as the 2024 MotoGP World Championship season progresses at pace.
The first back-to-back weekend of the season sees the Repsol Honda Team travel the 1,000 kilometres plus from Barcelona to Mugello for another weekend of MotoGP action. A classic on the MotoGP calendar, the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello is known for its incredible straight and fast, flowing corners. The layout of the circuit will give both teams and riders a great oppurtunity to continue collecting data and working towards the future.
Local hero Luca Marini enters the weekend eager to embrace the boost from his home fans off the back of a weekend of progress in Barcelona. Recent upgrades and changes to the Honda RC213V have helped Marini to improve his feeling and close the distance to the other Honda riders, authoring a strong start to the Catalan GP where he challenged for top Honda honours.
On the other side of the Repsol Honda Team garage, Joan Mir is targeting a return to his early year form. Despite taking points and fighting for top Honda honours in Barcelona, Mir is hungry for more around the Italian track. His best premier class result at the track came in 2021 when he finished third.
Location: Mugello Circuit
Located 30km north-east of Florence in the beautiful countryside of Tuscany, Mugello is a modern circuit with excellent facilities. Bought by Ferrari back in 1988, the 5.245km track has been renovated to a high standard and has a growing reputation as one of the world’s most up-to-date, scenic and safest race circuits.
A blend of slow and fast turns with sweeping curves, long straights and off-camber corners make Mugello one of the most challenging circuits for the riders and engineers. Having hosted its first MotoGP event back in 1976 the venue became a permanent fixture in 1991 after extensive refurbishment. Set within a beautiful tree lined Tuscan valley, Mugello also offers ample viewing areas for a particularly boisterous and partisan Italian crowd.
Your home GP is always something nice and I am really excited to go there as a factory Honda rider for the first time. I really want to enjoy the weekend with the Italian fans and enjoy their support. We made progress in Barcelona and I know that we can keep building on what we found during our private Mugello test for this coming weekend. It’s all about making this progress at each round and continuing to feel better and better. You can understand a lot about a bike around Mugello so the weekend, and post-race test, will be very useful for us.
Your home GP is always something nice and I am really excited to go there as a factory Honda rider for the first time. I really want to enjoy the weekend with the Italian fans and enjoy their support. We made progress in Barcelona and I know that we can keep building on what we found during our private Mugello test for this coming weekend. It’s all about making this progress at each round and continuing to feel better and better. You can understand a lot about a bike around Mugello so the weekend, and post-race test, will be very useful for us.
We have this race and a test before a bit of a break in the calendar. I want to extract the maximum possible from this weekend to recover from the tricky weekend we had in Barcelona. Everyone in the team and in HRC are working hard to make improvements and continue development. We have some ideas already from the test we had here, so let’s keep on going and enjoy riding.
We have this race and a test before a bit of a break in the calendar. I want to extract the maximum possible from this weekend to recover from the tricky weekend we had in Barcelona. Everyone in the team and in HRC are working hard to make improvements and continue development. We have some ideas already from the test we had here, so let’s keep on going and enjoy riding.