Joan Mir did not finish as Honda's best representative in the sprint race of the Argentine Grand Prix, but was nevertheless satisfied with his "solid race".
After a promising start to the season in Thailand two weeks ago, Honda proved this weekend that the progress seen is indeed real, as evidenced by the results of Joan Mir and Johann Zarco. If the Frenchman has dropped out a front row in qualifying et a fourth place in the sprint race, Joan mir evolved a little further back while remaining at the forefront.
The Spanish driver started the Argentine Grand Prix in ninth place in FP1 before missing out on direct qualification for Q2 by just a tenth, finishing 13th in Practice. Eleventh in FP2 this morning, he made it through Q1 before finishing tenth in Q2. "I only had one tire when we got to Q2 so we can be happy with what we did to be tenth.", he explained.
Maintaining his position at the start of the sprint race, he waited until the halfway point to begin his comeback and finally crossed the finish line in eighth place. Although he finished 5 seconds behind Johann Zarco, the first Honda representative, he achieved another top 8 finish, a result that had been extremely difficult for him to achieve over the last two years with the RC10V.
“A solid race. I think it was the best result we could have achieved today,” he added. “In the sprint race, I was able to be competitive and overtake a lot of riders. I knew I had a bit more pace than them before arriving in the sprint. There are still a few areas, especially on corner exit, that we need to improve on. We’ve already made progress this weekend, but as a rider, you always want more! I think we can get even more out of the long race tomorrow.”
Results of the sprint race of the Argentine Grand Prix :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
