Why Honda’s Assen MotoGP practice struggles were “expected”

Honda’s Joan Mir admits he “expected to struggle” at the Dutch Grand Prix, as no HRC MotoGP rider made it into the top 10 at the end of Friday’s Practice.

The Japanese manufacturer had a strong showing at the Czech Grand Prix, with Diogo Moreira running at the front early in the races, while Joan Mir completed the top five.

But the Dutch Grand Prix has so far been much tougher for Honda, with Mir its leading rider at the end of Friday’s practice sessions in 12th.

Mir was just under a tenth of a second from making it into Q2, but was 0.702s off the fastest lap set by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi.

Explaining why the Honda struggled so much on Friday, he said: “I expected here to struggle because of the type of layout.

“We struggled a lot in sector four. Also a bit in sector two, but especially in sector four.

“We have to improve the bike. In sectors one and three, I'm inside the top three.

“I'm the same rider 10 seconds later. We have to understand what is happening in that sector, because I'm losing six tenths or half a second there.

“It's tough. I'm happy because I think that personally I made a strong day. I ride alone, I did the lap time alone; here that is not easy.

“You need everything on point to make a lap time alone because you get an advantage, especially in the fast sectors in the second and fourth sectors when you follow.

“In my case, I was alone. We are a bit far from Aprilia and Ducati. We see that the two KTMs were very strong today and that conditioned a little bit our day.

“We were very close to reach the goal. But for a fucking flag, we could not accomplish that. Hopefully, tomorrow we have another chance.”

“It will be a difficult weekend”

LCR Honda’s Moreira was just behind Mir at the end of Practice, and noted that the RC213V lacks stability through the long, fast corners at Assen.

“Yeah, at the end here, we saw also in the past, we struggled a lot to make the time attack and also for the race,” the rookie said.

“Because at the end we have these long corners, so at the end it's difficult to keep the line.

“Because at the end the bike will start to shake and also move, so it's difficult to make this pace for the race.

“We saw also Mir, he's outside [the top 10], so at the end it will be difficult this weekend.”