Joan Mir makes bold claim about Honda’s potential after Thai MotoGP
Strong Thai GP weekend leads Mir to set sights high
Joan Mir believes Honda is in the fight to be best of the rest behind Ducati in MotoGP 2025 after an encouraging Thai Grand Prix weekend for the Japanese marque.
Honda was one of the surprise stories of the pre-season and carried on that solid form into the opening round of the new campaign last weekend at Buriram.
Mir qualified 11th on his RC213V and recovered to ninth in the sprint after losing places avoiding Marco Bezzecchi when the Aprilia rider spun his rear tyre off the line.
It marked Mir’s first sprint points since Jerez last year, while he was on course for a potential top seven result in the grand prix before crashing at the last corner on lap 15 of 26.
Joan Mir on Honda's Thai MotoGP
Without the crash, Mir reckons he could have been “close to the top five”, which would have put Honda as the first non-Ducati in the order, and believes this is the target HRC should realistically be aiming for now.
“A bit of a shame because for me today I think we could have made a good job,” Mir said on Sunday.
“I think today we could have been able to be very close to the top five with the pace that we were showing.
“And this is something in the last years I was not able to say to you in any race.
“So, it means that we are on the way. I think this is the worst scenario that we can have in terms of temperatures and we were strong. So, I’m happy.”
Asked by Crash.net if best of the rest was realistic for Honda now, Mir added: “Yeah, we have to go for it.
“I think the Ducati, at the moment we cannot compete with them.
“But with all the rest I think we can. I think we showed in this race what we can do and this is something that keeps me boosted for the next one.
“Hopefully we can find the solution for this thing of the heat, because honestly it was hard.”
Mir noted all weekend at Buriram that the Honda struggled in extremely hot conditions, with the Spaniard blaming his crash on the temperature of his bike: “I think it was the worst time I had on a motorbike for this burning - I was never burning like this.”
With Mir crashing out, LCR’s Johann Zarco took top Honda honours in seventh, which already exceeds the Japanese marque’s best result from the entirety of 2024.
Luca Marini on the sister factory team Honda was 12th, which equals his best result from last year too.
He believes Honda has gained 0.4s per lap in pace compared to the 2024 bike.
“I think we gained, compared to our pace from last year, four tenths,” he explained.
“Maybe we were 1.2s [off the pace], at the moment we are maybe 0.8s but we don’t know how much Marquez has in the pocket.
“For sure he was managing a lot in the front. They will grow up a bit but I think there is a limit that you can’t go faster than this with the tyres, which are amazing because we are doing the lap times in an incredible way and very constant during the races.
“But of course we can get closer to them during the year, I hope as soon as possible.”
Quotes provided by Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren
