Honda once again showed itself as one of the least competitive manufacturers at the beginning of the MotoGP season in Qatar. Joan Mir even referred to it as the «Japanese cup» against Yamaha, given the distance to the European manufacturers. His teammate at Repsol Honda, Luca Marini, acknowledges that it takes time to reach the desired levels.
The Italian admitted that Honda starts from a far-back position and must go through the lengthy recovery process, making progress steadily along the way:
– I think this is just the first race. We need to be realistic and calm. I think Joan made a good race. We need to know that our starting point is really behind and everybody is pushing a lot in the front to develop the bikes a lot every year. So it’s not we just need to reach one point, because this limit goes forward every year. So we need to run back to the top, but this is not easy; it’s a process that takes time. We just need to be calm and make steps forward every time.
Despite the result at the bottom positions, Marini highlighted some positive aspects of the Qatar GP: ‘In this race I could understand many things. For me this is important – better than make 16th and not understanding nothing because at the end it’s zero points’.
