Joan Mir: “Hopefully I can make a block pass on Marc tomorrow!” after Motegi Sprint duel

Joan Mir had no complaints about the firm pass by former team-mate Marc Marquez, which denied the Honda rider of third place in the Japanese MotoGP Sprint.

“No, no, no! Completely inside the limit, here it's difficult to overtake,” Mir told MotoGP.com afterwards.

“Sometimes you have to make this type of overtake because if not, you don't overtake. And now our engine is slightly more powerful, so also with these short straights it's difficult to overtake with a slipstream alone.

“Nothing [bad] to say about that. It's true that it made me lose a lot of time, also for himself, he also lost a lot of time. But this is racing, we gave a good show.

“So tomorrow hopefully I can make a block pass on him, let's see!”

Saturday was still the 2020 MotoGP champion’s most successful day on an RCV, starting with a head-turning second - between the factory Ducatis - in qualifying.

While Mir then lost touch with Francesco Bagnaia and KTM's Pedro Acosta at the start of the Sprint, he was able to keep Marquez at bay for lap after lap.

The #93 looked ragged as he ran wide on several occasions, while Mir thwarted two attempted overtakes by cutting back under at the apex.

But having extracted all he could from the rear tyre, Mir became increasingly vulnerable. The #93 eventually launched his Desmosedici up the inside of a hairpin, forcing Mir to yield as they both ran wide with 5 laps to go.

Mir’s podium hopes weren’t completely over, with Acosta also struggling for grip. However, the KTM rider was able to stay just 0.7s out of reach.

“Honestly, when you have the podium that close, I have something inside of me that I'm not 100% satisfied!” Mir, without a podium since Suzuki in 2021, told MotoGP.com.

“But I'm happy because after situation that we were living in for the previous years, and also the past Grands Prix when I had a lot of bd luck, finally being able to put something nice together feels unbelievable,” he said.

“We fought very, very hard. I enjoyed it so much and anything that we can do tomorrow will be just a gift.”

Could Mir be a podium contender again tomorrow?

“Podium contender, yes. But, difficult,” he said.

“We lost a bit of time to Pedro with that overtake from Marc. I think that was the problem of not being able to fight for the podium with Pedro at the end.

“But anyway, it was fun to be able to fight for the podium, even though it was a race where I was all the time pushing at 120%.

“At the end I had nothing left, the tyre was cooked, but it feels great.”

HRC team-mate Luca Marini finished in seventh place.

Riders are expected to switch from the soft to medium rear for the full length grand prix.