Joan Mir wants “explanation I deserve” from Honda after “very tough” British MotoGP Sprint

12th place in the British MotoGP Sprint left Joan Mir looking for the “explanation I deserve” from Honda.

Mir narrowly missed out on Q2 in both Practice on Friday afternoon and Q1 on Saturday morning, but was more encouraged by his race pace in practice.

However, in the Sprint he found himself unable to match the pace he showed in Practice and finally finished as the third-best Honda rider behind Luca Marini (10th) and Johann Zarco (fifth).

“It has been a very tough Sprint race,” Mir said after the Sprint.

“Until the Sprint race we were struggling a little bit to find these last tenths in qualifying, even though we were quite close to go to Q2, but for half-a-tenth as yesterday we couldn’t do it.

“On the other hand, my pace [in practice] was good, I was confident that I could do a good race in the Sprint [but] for some reason I was going one second off of my pace.

“I started to have a lot of problems that we usually have, but this weekend I didn’t complain [about them] so much.

“I hope the team can give me the explanation that I deserve after pushing and trying everything to move on and hopefully tomorrow we can put all the pieces together and forget this weekend that has been very delusional.”

Mir confirmed that the problem he had was about rear vibrations.

“Yes, chatter problem,” the Honda HRC rider said, “but this always comes when the grip level is very low.

“It’s true that the soft [compound front tyre] was a challenge for everyone because on the right side if you pushed too much you break the front tyre and, in my case that I’m an aggressive rider on the front and I request a lot, this is not helping.

“But, this morning, with 20 laps on the front tyre, I was doing 1:59s no problem, and this afternoon I could not get into the mid-2:00s.”

Zarco: “I could adapt my riding”

In contrast to Mir’s dejection at the recurring vibration issue, LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco said he is able to adapt his style to the problem.

“We have a lot of vibration when the tyre [wears] a lot every lap, but I could adapt my riding and I’m happy,” he said.

“When I began to have it, I adapted without losing speed and finally it paid off.”

HRC test rider Aleix Espargaro, who is wildcarding this weekend, said that the way to adapt is to be more aggressive in braking and acceleration and cut out any part of the mid-corner where the rider is without both brake and throttle.

“I don’t know yet but it looks like [...] it’s more about going deep with the brakes and then pick up the bike and accelerate – like, no phase without brake or throttle,” he said.

“But it’s difficult. This is what I see from the telemetry of Johann and Joan [Mir].”

Espargaro also said, however, that adapting to the problem is not in itself a “solution” to it.

“I’ve said from the beginning that it’s [a rider adapting their riding style] not the solution,” he said.

“The solution is that the engineers and myself, the test team, find a solution if we want to win races.

“We are trying our best but until this day arrives, what we have to do, the riders, is try to adapt as much as possible.

“Johann [Zarco] proved again today that he is the best at adapting to this type of chattering.”