Work to do overnight for Repsol Honda Team in Assen
TT Circuit AssenA complicated end to the afternoon left Joan Mir and Luca Marini languishing down the time sheets, both confident Saturday will see a change in fortunes.
Friday morning in Assen saw a welcome return to MotoGP activity for the Repsol Honda Team as Joan Mir and Luca Marini were back on track for the first time since the Mugello Test. Both Repsol Honda Team riders were eager to be reunited with the respective Honda RC213V machines and went about making the most of the morning session, amongst the first riders out.
Mir was able to walk away unharmed from a crash at Turn 8 in the afternoon session, but he immediately returned to track for the final minutes in an attempt to improve his time. Unfortunately, a different setup and several yellow flags saw him maintain his best lap time of 1’33.355 – an improvement of almost a full second over the morning session.
Starting Friday ahead of his teammate, Luca Marini was hoping for more in the afternoon as he and his side of the garage focused in on improving the performance with their current package. Marini’s best time of 1’33.561 had him two tenths back from his teammate, but the Italian is hungry to close the gap to the rest of the field.
Work will continue on Saturday with more practice, Qualifying and the Sprint Race.
The crash today upset our plan a bit, I was unharmed, but the second bike was not setup like the first, so it was very difficult to push for a lap at the end. I had just put in a new tyre to push for a time in the top ten when I fell. We did a lot of work in the morning which was good and were able to make more steps in the afternoon before the fall. Tomorrow there’s work to do if we want to achieve our full potential but everyone is pushing together.
Today we worked on taking the maximum out of our package, looking to improve with adjustments. I was aiming for more because the gap is a bit big, but everyone here is very fast this weekend. We need to make a step tomorrow and the team have already begun working so I am sure we can do it. Our feeling is good, we just need more performance. We are making progress, as are the others, so we have to look for a big step.
