The Honda HRC Castrol rider revealed that it’s crucial for Honda to resolve some problems he’s been having with the bike’s vibration and rear grip, and that these have made it difficult to find happiness.
When asked about his immediate priorities, Joan Mir was straightforward in identifying the crucial problems that need to be solved: ‘Trying to understand this vibration issue, trying to remove it, trying to improve the rear grip a little bit. If we can understand something and follow a line to improve it, I’ll be satisfied,’ said the Honda rider.
Even before the tests at Jerez, after the GP, Mir didn’t anticipate radical changes in the short term: ‘I don’t expect a revolution [at the Tests], but if we can improve a little, that will be important,’ he explained.
Asked by the press what he meant by the ‘floating feeling’ of the bike, the Spaniard detailed the challenging experience: ‘It’s when you have the ability to be fast, the bike is on rails, and when you have this floating feeling it’s when you brake, you always feel like you’re sliding and when you start to turn the same thing happens, and you never get it right… it’s always moving a bit, so the grip isn’t there’.
Mir went on to explain how this instability directly affects his riding and ability to attack: ‘You don’t get the tyre to work properly and you always feel this, the handlebars moving and the rear moving, so it’s a moment when you can’t attack. You have to defend’, he revealed. Despite these challenges, the driver positively emphasised his lap pace, which he considers ‘very good’ and ‘not far from first’, maintaining a determined outlook: ‘It’s difficult to be happy, but I think we have to be strong and we’re on the right track’.