Penultimate in qualifying ahead of Belgian Loris Cresson, forced to retire during the first race, 18th during the Superpole race and 18th again at the finish of race 2, the team MIE Racing Honda Team and its rider Leandro Mercado, did not have a successful entry during the first round of the 2021 Superbike World Championship in Aragón.
“Tati” Mercado although he put this poor performance down to a lost bet concerning the choice of tires on his Honda Fireblade CBR10000RR-R SP, Midori Moriwaki, granddaughter of the famous Hideo “Pops” Yoshimura and team manager of the Japanese team, has made a decision and the ax has fallen: The team is temporarily ending its participation in WorldSBK to review its copy and come back stronger.
Midori Moriwaki : “Using the Aragón round as a starting point, we have embarked on a path of development of the bike which will see us undertake a series of tests over the coming weeks. By doing so, we believe we will be able to compete at a much higher level throughout the remainder of the season than we saw last weekend. The decision to miss a limited number of events was not easy to make, but we believe it is the right way to take it to the next level this year, now that the problems and challenges caused by the pandemic are beginning finally to be resolved. Now is the time to exploit the maximum potential of the fantastic teamwork of the MIE Racing Honda Team, our bike and our rider Tati Mercado, in order to achieve much better results during the season. »
No date has been mentioned for the return of the MIE (Midori International Engineering) Racing Honda Team has competition, but this approach corresponds quite well to the approach of the Japanese team, generally more interested in technical development than in race results, even if a world title was nevertheless obtained in Moto2 with Toni Elias in 2010.
The structure of Midori Moriwaki had only revealed its (beautiful) 2021 colors on Saturday evening in Aragón.
