Did Honda’s Jerez MotoGP result flatter to deceive?
Joan Mir doesn’t believe Johann Zarco’s top seven at the Spanish Grand Prix is representative
LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco enjoyed a strong weekend at the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix, in which he qualified second in the wet and finished the dry main race seventh.
Honda came into the 2026 MotoGP season off the back of an encouraging resurgence last year, with Johann Zarco winning the wet French Grand Prix and finishing second at the British Grand Prix in the dry.
Joan Mir also scored a brace of podiums in dry conditions for the factory Honda team at the end of the year.
But 2026 has not started off quite as strongly for Honda, who at the same stage of 2025 had already breached the top five.
The Spanish Grand Prix marked a new high for Honda this year, with Zarco seventh in the main race having started second on the grid.
The LCR rider was 13.039s behind race winner Alex Marquez on the Gresini Ducati, while the next-best Honda was Luca Marini on a damaged RC213V in 13th.
But this result hasn’t provided 2020 world champion Mir with massive optimism, noting that circumstance played into Zarco’s hands more than pure pace.
“I’m happy for Johann, but we know everyone’s pace here is very similar,” he said, as reported by Motorsport.
“If you start at the front, you can afford to ease off a bit and still finish seventh. If someone doesn’t crash ahead, then you finish eighth.
“Either way, that doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know about this bike.
“We started at the front and then fell back. If the race had lasted five more laps, I would have finished 10th.
“And if it had lasted 10 more laps, 15th. And if you try anything else, you end up on the ground, as has happened to us lately.
“So, it’s not a question of what result the other guy can achieve.
“I know my potential, I know everything, but the reality is that we have to accept the potential of the current package.”
Mir’s 15th-place finish at Jerez marked his first grand prix chequered flag of the season, though it came after he was forced to serve two long lap penalties for ignoring black-and-orange flags in practice after a crash.
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