Joan Mir finished the Sprint race of the Qatar MotoGP Grand Prix in 15th position. The Repsol Honda rider was affected by a technical problem for almost half of the 11 laps of yesterday’s race in Losail before managing to adopt a better pace.
The Spaniard revealed to the press that, after overcoming the setbacks, he was pleased with his performance: ‘Honestly I had a mechanical problem at the beginning of the race, in the first five laps. Then this problem disappeared and I was able to put my pace and to do 1m53s low on the last part of the race. Actually it wasn’t bad in the second group, I was catching that second group. I started to overtake and I finished the race with a good feeling. This is the reality. Of course the position is not the best one, but we finished behind that group coming from really behind. I could overtake, but I hope that we don’t have this mechanical problem in the main race and we can do a more realistic race and a realistic result – that I think it is to be very close to the top ten. It was what I said at the beginning’.
Regarding the issue that affected him, Mir detailed: ‘The engine was not working right. I was losing acceleration at the beginning of the race. Then this problem disappeared on the lap five. I doubt if I had to go in or bring the bike to the box, but then I saw it was getting better and once it disappeared I could complete the race’.