This press conference of the Grand Prix from Japan MotoGP 2025 first gathered in Motegi Francis Bagnaia et Joan mir for their post-race debriefing, before leaving the place to the one dedicated to the only Marc Marquez, due to his new world title in the premier category.
Joan mir took his first Grand Prix podium since the Algarve in 2021, when he finished 2nd, 1421 days ago. This is his first podium with Honda, and it is also the first Grand Prix podium for a Honda factory rider since Marc Márquez, 3rd here at Motegi in 2023.
He is 15rd in the championship, 17 points behindEnea Bastianini and tied with Maverick Vinales.
As usual, we report here in full the words of the latter, without the slightest formatting, even if it is translated from English.
🎤 Welcome to the first part of our post-race press conference here at the Japanese Grand Prix. We have with us, of course, the winner back in business with a perfect one-two, the beautiful alliteration for Francesco Bagnaia and the Ducati Lenovo Team this weekend, and there is also much to celebrate: the first podium for you since, you were just saying, I think the 2021 Algarve, that's right, and also the first podium for an official Honda since here, in 2023, with Marc. Congratulations Joan Mir, from Honda HRC Castrol!
🎤 Joan, of course, another incredible thing to celebrate for you today. A lot of happy people on the podium today, and for different reasons. It's been a while since you've been up here. You've had some incredible bad luck, a few mistakes too, but this weekend you really put it all together. It was a fantastic overall performance: a front row in qualifying, yesterday very close to the podium, and today you're there. What does that mean to you and to Honda?
Joan Mir: “Well, I think you said it very well. The reality is that it has been a very difficult time for me. From the day we decided to join Honda, at a difficult time, we already knew that it could be a long time without perhaps achieving good results. But I could never have imagined it would last this long.
The reality is that it was a super difficult time. I never gave up, I always tried, not always but sometimes, to see the positive side of things that happened to us.
And now you can imagine what that tastes like, how good that podium tastes. I savored every lap of that race, battling with those riders, something I hadn't done for a long time.
And yeah, I'm super happy for the team. They deserve it so much, especially here in Japan. I couldn't have asked for a better place to make our comeback. So yeah, I'm just super happy for all of this."
🎤 Joan, did you feel during this period that people didn't respect you as the world champion that you are? I mean, I don't know if this 3rd place means anything, but did you feel that?
“Yes, yes. I think for people, well, in sport in general, you are what you did in your last race. But it's not particularly about me, I think everyone has the same problem (laughs).
In the end, it's very easy for people to talk and write shit from behind their phones, and it doesn't benefit anyone. But in the end, I know what I've achieved. I think people who know a little about this world and sports in general evaluate everything properly.
And I'm not "super good" today and "a disaster" yesterday. You know, that's not how it works, I think. But I can't do much more. I think we're exposed to all these people, and it's something extraordinary on the one hand, but on the other hand, we're also exposed to critics and haters, all of that. So no, it doesn't change my life. It never changed anything."
🎤 Joan, is the progress we've seen here related to this being a Honda track? Nakagami has been doing some testing here. How has the bike improved and what can we expect for the next races?
"Well, in my case, the potential I had at this Grand Prix wasn't something that surprised me. The podium, yes, but the potential itself, not so much. Because even in Misano I already had good potential on Friday, but because of the injury I couldn't put together a full weekend. And then, in Brno, I also started well at the front, but then I fell back, fell back.
I think the problem is that we haven't been able to put a result together. But the potential I had at the beginning of the season and the one I have now are different. I have more, I just need a little bit of luck, a little something from space... I don't know where... to put it all together. But trying to put together weekends like this, that was my goal at the beginning of the weekend: just trying to put a result together. The podium probably wasn't what I imagined, it was more like a top five. But I had the opportunity to fight for something bigger and I took it."
Japanese Grand Prix result at Motegi:
Classification credit: motogp.com
MotoGP Japan
