Honda absent from Italian MotoGP Friday top 10: “This track doesn’t let us highlight our strengths”

Joan Mir says a “tough” Friday for Honda at the Italian MotoGP was down to the characteristics of the Mugello circuit not allowing the HRC riders to exploit the strong points of the RC213V.

Mir was the best-placed Honda in Practice at Mugello, but was only 16th-fastest, one place ahead of Johann Zarco who was on the podium in the dry at Silverstone only two races ago.

The 2020 MotoGP World Champion’s 1:45.652 meant that HRC was unable to be within one second of the fastest time of Practice, a 1:44.634 by KTM’s Maverick Vinales, and he explained that this was down to the layout at Mugello not playing to the strengths of the RC213V.

“This track doesn’t let us highlight the strengths of our bike,” Joan Mir said.

“Long corners with high angle, really long straight where top speed is important.

“So it’s been a tough Friday honestly.

“We need to have a think about what we can do in the rest of the weekend since we can’t gain under braking like in other tracks.

“It’s a good test to demonstrate what we need, so we try and gather as much information as we can for the engineers to make the plan for the future.”

Mir’s stand-in teammate (in the absence of the injured Luca Marini) at Honda HRC Castrol, Takaaki Nakagami, was 20th in Practice, which he said was below his ambition.

“Of course, I was hoping for a better result today but it’s a tricky circuit for Honda at the moment,” Nakagami said.

“There are some things that I think I can improve on my riding to close the gap more to Mir, but I will spend this evening checking the data and some footage.

“In the morning I felt quite good with the medium [compound rear tyre], but the soft is one I am not as familiar with from testing so there’s a better balance to find.”