Joan Mir narrowly missed out on the top ten in the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix. The Repsol Honda rider was the best among the Japanese manufacturers, finishing 11th in yesterday’s race at Losail.
The Spanish rider told the press that he was pleased with his performance: ‘It wasn’t bad. Honestly let’s say I’m happy, because I made… not bad first laps, I overtook quite a lot of riders – I started 18th or whatever. And then I was very close to the front guys, I could see the front group. I was controlling well the tyres and everything, I was behind Fabio [Quartararo] all the race’.
In the final stages, Mir attempted to overtake his opponent, admitting that it ended up causing him difficulties later on: ‘Then, in the last five laps, I decided to overtake him because I thought I had something more. I started to push, I opened a gap of one second and then I killed the tyre. In the last two laps I fought everything what I did in the last five. But I could fight a bit, I could enjoy a bit, fighting with the Japanese cup [Honda and Yamaha] – even leading the Japanese cup. But then I was too optimistic in the last five laps. I didn’t expect such a big drop on the tyre, but it’s true that we didn’t make 22 laps in a row in any test. So we saw here that we have to handle the electronics in a different way, or more conservative, on the race. But we learned a couple of things, we got good information’.
Now, the 2020 champion is hoping for new solutions on the bike at the Portuguese GP: ‘I think the next race we’ll get some new things that we asked in the tests. And if the track fits a bit better to our bike, maybe we can make another step. Here if we are close to the top ten with our bike it isn’t a disaster’.