Joan Mir’s confusing Honda MotoGP “reality” highlighted at Assen

Sunday’s Assen MotoGP race saw yet another crash for Joan Mir, the Spaniard left unsure why he fell.

Mir’s Dutch Grand Prix crash came on lap one and a day after he crashed on the opening lap of the Sprint at Assen.

The Sprint crash, Mir said, he understood, but the fall in the full-distance race was a mystery to him.

“Honestly, yesterday I knew why I crashed,” said Joan Mir after the Assen race.

“Today, I don't know. 

“It's something that happens quite often, that you crash and you don't know why. That's a bit the reality. 

“When you don't understand why you are crashing, it's very difficult to not repeat the action because you don't understand. 

“But I think I've been in this situation before many times, and the best thing for my mental health is to not think so much about it and try to rest, relax, reset, and in the next one we try because the reality is that we are fast. 

“For me that is always the important thing, that we are strong. We can be in a different situation if we are not strong and we don't crash, so I prefer that.”

Mir felt that his potential in the race was to fight with Alex Marquez, who ended up fifth. A top-five would’ve been a second in succession for Mir after finishing fifth at Brno the week before.

“I think we show that we can have a top five – not in every weekend but almost – and I think today is not an exception,” he said.

“I think I could be fighting there with Alex [Marquez], with Bastianini, maybe with Marc [Marquez] at the end, so I think that I was in that group. 

“But the thing is that I cannot repeat it every weekend, and this is painful.”

Hopes of a rebound at Sachsenring are not high for Mir, the Spaniard feeling that the German track is among the worst for himself and Honda.

“Probably is the worst weekend in all the year for me, probably,” the Honda HRC Castrol rider said.

“So, it's long corners that you have there, all the time with [lean] angle, you don't have braking points, so I don't expect so much. 

“But, well, last year I was sixth and then Ogura kicked me out, so I think it will be important in Sachsenring to finish, to recover that, and then when we will go to better tracks, like for example Austria, then overseas, we can have a chance to do more.”