Joan Mir: “We can’t expect a big leap at this stage”

Joan Mir has played down expectations of a Honda breakthrough during his first home Spanish MotoGP round of the season, at Jerez, this weekend.

Honda returns to Europe after enduring a disastrous COTA round.

Following the high of victory with Alex Rins in 2023, the four Honda riders languished at the bottom of the timesheets for much of the 2024 Americas weekend.

Mir’s team-mate Luca Marini was the only RCV rider to reach the chequered flag, in last place, during both the Sprint and Grand Prix races.

“I think coming to a race like Jerez where you have all the home fans to support you will be a help after the tough weekend we had in Austin,” Mir said.

“It’s important to put that behind us and keep working like we did at the start of the year to understand the capability of the bike this weekend.”

After COTA, Repsol riders Mir and Luca Marini joined HRC test rider Stefan Bradl in a private outing at Barcelona. 

But if any major developments appear at Jerez, it seems it will only be after the race weekend, during the official Monday test.

“We are realistic about what is possible, and we need to focus on making improvements and aiming for more in the future,” Mir said. “It’s about step by step, making steady progress and we can’t expect a big leap at this stage.”

New Repsol signing Marini can at least count on some previous private testing laps on the Honda at Jerez, as well as Bradl’s test data at the track.

“It’s another weekend to keep working with the team and aim for more improvements,” said the Italian.

“Now is not the time to stop working, we have to keep on gathering information and not only trying to improve our current package but also working on developments for the future.

“Jerez is a good track for this kind of job, the Test Team has done a lot of testing here and will be with us this weekend so it will be interesting to see what we can learn from this.”

Bradl will be making his first wild-card appearance of the season this weekend, alongside fellow test riders Dani Pedrosa (KTM) and Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia).

LCR's Takaaki Nakagami was the top Honda finisher, in ninth, at Jerez last year.