Luca Marini confident of “another step” in Austria

Luca Marini is confident of taking ‘another step’ forward with his Repsol Honda at this weekend’s Austrian MotoGP.

Just 20th and 42-seconds behind on his RC213V debut in Qatar, the Italian has slowly but surely risen from the tail of the timesheets in recent rounds.

Tyre pressure penalties moved Marini into a point in Germany (+25s) and he looked set to repeat that 15th place last time at Silverstone, until a post-race tyre pressure penalty of his own.

Nevertheless, Marini feels ‘everything is coming together better and better’.

“In Silverstone showed the progress we have been making with the bike, everything is coming together better and better and I am able to improve and make progress during the weekend,” Marini said.

“The results are not what we want of course but we’re building and working. I think in Austria we will be able to make another step at a track which is very different to the rest, it’s all about braking and acceleration so we will need to focus a lot on these areas.”

HRC is tipped to provide its riders with updates including a new engine configuration this weekend.

That engine should help with straight-line performance, something team-mate Joan Mir said was reduced with the current engine spec, introduced in Barcelona.

“I am looking forward to seeing how we can improve in Austria after a run of weekends where we haven’t been able to deliver on our potential properly,” Mir said.

“Spielberg is a very particular circuit and usually I am very good under hard braking and hopefully we can find something to help on corner exit to stay with the others.

“It’s an important period coming up to work on things for the end of the season.”

Mir took his first grand prix victory as a Moto3 rider at the Red Bull Ring in 2026, then his first MotoGP podium at the track in 2020, during his title winning year at Suzuki.