Season best for Mir, Marini after Misano upgrades

Forward progress continued for the Repsol Honda Team at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli as more data from new upgrades to the Honda RC213V helped to propel Joan Mir and Luca Marini to their best weekend of the season. Having taken their best grid positions of the year so far, the pair converted it to a double point-scoring finish as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend showed the first rewards from nine months of intense work throughout 2024 for HRC's engineers.

Starting well when the lights went out on the 27-lap race, Joan Mir would almost immediately be sent to the back of the pack as another rider sent him wide. With buoyed confidence from overnight setup adjustments, Mir launched a strong comeback as he cut through the field and made his way to 11th. His lap times in the second half of the race were particularly impressive as the #36 mirrored the speed of those in the top ten. The result puts Mir back on track after taking only two points in seven rounds. A welcome boost in confidence, the double World Champion is determined to continue with this level of performance as the championship starts its stint in Asia.

Luca Marini delighted home fans with his performance on the way to 12th position - an impressive improvement on his previous best finish of 15th in Germany. Like his teammate, the early laps of the race limited the #10's full potential as he worked to get his rear tyre into the optimal operating conditions. Once in the rhythm of the race, Marini joined Mir is scything through the field and enjoyed his best race of the season. Work and upgrades from the last races and tests have helped Marini and his side of the Repsol Honda Team to build a package they feel confident with, now aiming to work on refining the details and continuing their progress.

There's little time to rest as the Indonesian Grand Prix starts on Friday, 27 September in Lombok, Indonesia. It will be a race across the world for riders, team members and the freight to hit the ground running at Round 15.

"A really good race, the first time I could really push and really ride and enjoy being on the bike. I made a good start but then Raul was quite optimistic into the opening corners, so I went wide and dropped down to last. Then I got my head down and started to overtake, especially in the second half of the race I was really pleased with my performance. Not just the overtaking, but also the lap times which were the same as those guys in the top ten. 11th is a good result from where we are coming from and it's really good to see improvements over the weekend. I have to also say thank you to my team for their work this weekend, my first in Misano, they did a good job to improve the feeling overnight. It's encouraging and gives us all a boost as we head to Asia," said Honda rider Joan Mir.

"I am really happy with this weekend. I fully enjoyed it and there are a lot of positives to take away from it. We have found a good package with the upgrades the Japanese have made; all of the engineers have been making a good effort and now we are starting to see it in the results. The first three laps with the rear are quite complicated still, we need to work on this because even starting in 15th, we are missing something in the first laps and it stops us fighting with the others. The new aero has helped a lot, but we have also improved a lot of other small areas in the last few outings. We can head to Indonesia with optimism to continue in this way. Thank you to everyone in the team who has been working hard and staying focused all year," said Honda rider Luca Marini. (ANI)