Qualifying “complicates” Joan Mir’s weekend, but “I had fun” in Thai MotoGP Sprint

Persisting issues with vibration held back Joan Mir in qualifying at the Thai MotoGP, but the Spanish rider enjoyed a positive Sprint.

Mir was happy with his initial pace in the Sprint, which he eventually finished in 13th place, but encountered late tyre wear troubles despite choosing the more durable hard-compound rear tyre.

“In the race, the good rhythm that we had this morning, I was able to do it,” Mir said.

“I was able to recover many positions; step-by-step I was in the high-1:30s in the first part of the race, and then for some reason the tyre dropped so much.

“We were with the hard rear [tyre], because we wanted to test for tomorrow, and the drop was massive — the tyre dropped close to one second per lap in the last laps.

“So, it was difficult to understand; we have to analyse everything, because hopefully we [had] it today and not tomorrow, and maybe that can change a bit our mentality in terms of tyre [choice] for tomorrow.

“But, it was a positive day for us: I’m happy.”

A rising theme in MotoGP is that the racing at the front becomes fairly tedious, with most of the riders riding the same bike in largely the same way, and therefore unable to make much difference compared to their rivals in order to make a pass happen.

In comparison, further back in the pack there is more diversity in machinery, resulting in more intense battles.

“The thing is that the camera only shows the top-five, but behind it was very fun,” Mir said.

“I was tucking the front, overtaking; all the riders that I was overtaking in the corners were overtaking me in the straight, and I passed them again on the corner.

“I had fun, [for the first time] since a long time. I started 19th and I was fighting for the top-10 — that is our goal, we can’t do much more.”

While Mir was able to enjoy the battles in the Sprint, he wasn’t able to extract the most from himself in qualifying due to continuing problems with vibrations.

“The qualifying complicates all our weekend,” Mir said. “We have a lot of problems with vibrations, it’s very difficult to handle with a new tyre because, in that condition, the limit of the bike— you arrive very quickly to this.

“Then, it’s a constant vibration that the Japanese people — we all know that problem — they are trying to understand because it’s difficult for them to understand from where [the vibration comes from], and how it’s possible that one rider has more, another less.

“This is so difficult for them to understand, it’s normal. We are a bit in that process to solve it, but [while] we don’t improve that, I will be not able to perform in qualifying — it’s every time the same.”

Mir felt he had improved his feeling with the bike on Saturday morning in Thailand, but was even unable to take advantage of those improvements in qualifying because of the vibration issue.

“This morning, we fixed the bike, I feel a lot better with the front part of it,” Mir said.

“We don’t have good grip in acceleration, we lose compared to the others, this is something that we know. But, if you can stay behind and you can use more the front part of the bike, maybe you can follow.

“But, the thing is that, if you have the vibrations, you cannot even use that front part of the bike. This is what is killing all the performance on the qualifying laps.”

Overall, Mir concluded that his Saturday in Thailand was “probably not the worst one. We had a lot of worse days than this one, so it’s a good feeling and a good boost for tomorrow.”

However, his focus remains on the vibration issue: “Let’s see if tomorrow we can close this weekend and solve this thing of the vibration because it’s horrible.”