Joan Mir labels Aragon MotoGP speed “not a coincidence”

Factory Honda MotoGP rider Joan Mir says “it’s not a coincidence” that he was fourth fastest in Friday MotoGP practice at the Aragon Grand Prix as he feels this speed has been coming.

Honda has had a strong 2025 MotoGP season so far, with LCR’s Johann Zarco winning the wet French Grand Prix and finishing second at the British Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Though showing flashes of speed in the first seven rounds, 2020 world champion Joan Mir only has 18 points to his credit in a crash-strewn campaign.

On Friday at Aragon, however, Mir sailed through to a direct Q2 place and was the leading Honda in fourth overall with an identical lap time to third-placed Maverick Vinales.

While this result is eye-catching, Mir says “it’s not a surprise” because he has felt this has been possible for the last few rounds and believes the top five is realistic in the races.

“It’s true that on the TV what you see is only the result,” he began.

“But it’s not always like this. In the last few races I think we were very close to doing this result, but for some reason we couldn’t put it together.

“Today we improved a little bit the grip on the rear part of the bike and that was enough to make a result.

“So, it’s not a coincidence, it’s not a surprise, it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time.

“And it’s what I said yesterday, I feel now that I have all the pieces of the puzzle that I need to put together and today we put some together.

“So, let’s try to continue like this, try to maximise what we have and make a good result tomorrow and on Sunday. Top five is something realistic.”

Mir added that he has “sacrificed” braking performance to improve corner-exit form, but notes that the gains made in finding rear grip means he doesn’t have to push as much into turns.

“During all the year I said I felt very good on the braking, going into the corners, but when I start to open the throttle it’s the point where I start to lose compared to the others,” he explained.

“We improved that point today. Maybe I was feeling on that point, so I sacrificed a little bit the braking.

“So, I was not exaggerating so much on braking because I was able to have slightly better grip. So, that was enough to make a good result today.”

Mir does admit that the low-grip nature of Aragon makes it hard to know if Honda has made a genuine traction improvement or just isn’t struggling as much, but believes he has a package “to fight” with.

“That is always a mystery because you think that if you have a bike that generates grip, if there’s no grip on track normally you should have more grip than the others,” he said.

“But if you don’t have grip on tracks that are really grippy and you come to a track where the grip is a disaster, you don’t struggle so much, you don’t understand what is happening a bit.

“It’s a little bit what is happening now.

“I don’t have a real answer, but the real thing is handling, braking, we are very close to having a package to fight. We’re just missing grip. We improve that, we are faster.”