Joan Mir: “Imagine... The others just smash you on the straight”

Joan Mir returned to the Sunday MotoGP points for the first time since round two in Argentina by securing a tenth-place finish at Silverstone.

The HRC rider also bounced back from a lacklustre Sprint performance, with his 10.3s Sunday deficit to race winner Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) smaller than in the half-distance race.

But there were 'mixed emotions' afterwards, with Mir surging from twelfth to seventh in the early stages, then paying the price in terms of traction and dropping to tenth at the chequered flag.

“Mixed emotions today,” Mir confirmed. “Positive because in both starts, I was able to recover positions and I was able to fight in the front group, that is always very important.

“But that fight, coming from the back, meant I paid at the end of the race. From five laps to the end, my rear tyre was cooked and then I was not able to accelerate properly.

“If you accelerate behind the others with this bike, you normally lose. [So] imagine when you have a cooked tyre, the others just smash you on the straight.

“I could not defend my position. Every time we arrived at the straight with these problems of traction, one by one, sometimes two were overtaking me.

“It was a shame because we were all very close. And I lost many, many positions in a couple of laps.

“Very unlucky, I would say, because I think after the race we’ve done, we deserve it a bit more.

“We have to understand why this drop happened and if it happened to the others. It’s probably something about the setup, electronic.

“We have to work on these details that at the end make the difference.”

Le Mans winner Johann Zarco once again finished as the top Honda, taking second place.

Mir’s Repsol Honda team-mate Luca Marini crossed the line in eighth but was later relegated to 15th due to a tyre pressure penalty.