Honda hopes Mir doesn’t lose motivation throughout its MotoGP nadir

Honda is hoping that its lead rider Joan Mir can keep his motivation degree till it is ready to produce a aggressive bike in MotoGP once more.

The Japanese producer’s 2024 marketing campaign was arguably its worst-ever within the premier class, because it ended the 12 months on the backside of the standings with simply 75 factors on the board.

On the manufacturing facility RC213V, Mir mustered simply 21 factors through the season, ending twenty first and solely forward of team-mate Luca Marini within the riders’ standings. Each have been outscored by LCR duo Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami, dealing an additional blow to HRC’s picture.

Crew boss Alberto Puig admitted that Honda’s aggressive wrestle has made life troublesome for 2020 champion Mir, however he needs the Spaniard to retain the identical need to achieve MotoGP.

“Joan is already a world champion in MotoGP, so the present scenario shouldn’t be so comfy for him,” Puig informed the official MotoGP web site.

“The bike shouldn’t be on the degree. He’s making an attempt, he has had some crashes, clearly. When you’re a champion, you might be pushing, you need to have the outcome, however nonetheless issues couldn’t match. 

“I hope he can preserve his motivation even in troublesome occasions.”

Puig feels Honda was capable of finding a transparent path with the event of the bike after quite a lot of experiments through the first half of the 2024 season.

A transparent uplift in efficiency was seen from the second spherical in Misano, with Zarco capable of ship two top-10 finishes through the flyaway races in Asia.

Nonetheless, whereas Puig takes encouragement from the progress made by the crew, he admitted that the outcomes have been far under expectations.

“It isn’t been straightforward, clearly. The outcomes are usually not what we would like,” he conceded.

“Nevertheless it’s been a 12 months that….[in the] first a part of the season we have been making an attempt many many issues and options and within the second a part of the 12 months we kind of had an concept of what can work or not. 

“We made some enhancements, not as a lot as we’d have preferred. We made some enhancements and we’re in fixed analysis of the way to put together subsequent 12 months’s machine. 

“Nonetheless we did not make the outcome we’re searching for. However from our engineering viewpoint, the engineers are understanding increasingly more the way to proceed, the place to go, and the way we’ve got to do, which is necessary. however this most likely takes time to see the outcomes, the fact on the paper.”

Alberto Puig, Crew Principal Repsol Honda Crew

Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Photographs

Sustaining Honda’s drive to return to the entrance, Puig insisted: “The one factor we by no means misplaced was our will to return again.

“That is the need that drives you to maintain on going, regardless that we’re clearly behind, and it is a truth.”