The first day of MotoGP testing in Sepang was encouraging for Joan Mir. The lap times were good, with his best time ranking sixth, but the progress made by Honda was the most important takeaway.
The rider from Palma de Mallorca explained that he worked with two variants of the RC213V, but only in the afternoon did he focus on aspects that could lead to improvements sooner: ‘Today we’ve been trying those two bikes. The 2024 is not fully 2024, and the 2025 is not fully 2025. In the morning we tried everything that doesn’t give you performance in the short-term: the things on the electronics side that you don’t want to try, back-to-back with the bikes, used tyres. And then we started to work on things that can give you something in the short-term. That was good for the feeling, because with every exit I was improving. We finished the day being quite fast with used tyres – and also with new tyres’.
More important than the position in the timing sheets, Mir revealed that they have found something that allows him to ride with the style he intends: ‘I’m happy, because we more or less understood the line that we want to keep during this test. We’ve more or less found the line for the set-up and geometry that allows me to ride the way that I ride – in a way that I was not able to ride in the last season, and especially in the second part of the season. And now, Honda brings a package that allows me to do it. That is a little bit the summary of the day. I was happy in every exit, I was smiling, I was enjoying on the bike’.
Confident in the improvements made, at this moment, straight-line speed – according to Mir, Honda is the slowest – and grip are two aspects in particular that still need improvement. Therefore, these will be the focus points in the last two days of testing in Sepang.