Repsol Honda Team take positive lessons from confidence building Sprint

Repsol Honda Team take positive lessons from confidence building Sprint

MotoGP 2024 Round 2, Grande Premio de Portugal

Portugal, March 24, 2024: A day of improvements for Joan Mir and Luca Marini in Portugal, the pair pleased to finish the Sprint with good information and direction for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Despite a muted start to the day with Qualifying, the Repsol Honda Team were ultimately left with positive feelings as setup changes for the Sprint Race saw both Mir and Marini make improvements. The pair head into Sunday looking to emulate this progress once more as they remain focused on building the project ahead of them.

Starting 20th, Mir launched well but found himself in a tangle of riders through Turn 1 and his progress briefly stalled. Keeping his focus, the #36 would produce a steady march up the order to finish as the first Honda rider home. Passing Morbidelli and Augusto Fernandez in the closing stages of the race, Mir walked away pleased with the pace he had shown compared to that of the top ten. Mir would ultimately finish in 14th.

Marini entered the 12-lap Sprint focusing purely on himself and his riding, out to collect as much information as possible. Starting well, he attached himself to the other Honda riders and worked to stay with them throughout the race. Pre-Sprint setup changes yielded some positives for the Italian who is looking for further improvements, and more laps completed, in Sunday’s feature race. Marini crossed the line in 18th place.

The 25-Lap Portuguese Grand Prix is schedule to start at 14:00 Local Time on Sunday, March 24. Both Mir and Marini will be searching for more progress on Sunday as they continue the development of the Honda RC213V.

Joan Mir (14th)

“Our race was quite good in the end after we took a pretty big risk with the setup. It’s still a new bike and we are learning things every exit. In the morning, we weren’t able to make the step forward that we needed to so we suffered in Qualifying. In the race my pace was close to that of the top ten but starting so far back limits you. We have to be happy with the step we made in the race because we were able to improve our race pace by a second.”

Luca Marini (18th)

“I went into the Sprint today with a different setting that we wanted to try across the 12 laps of the short race to understand the behaviour of the bike. I think this helped us to find something in the exit of the corners but we sacrificed a little bit in other areas. For us the Sprint is a good opportunity to try things. Now it’s time to analyse the data and also check what Joan and his team did to improve overall. We still have Warm Up tomorrow to try a few things and keep on improving.”

Portuegese GP - Sprint Results

Pos.	Rider	Num	Nation	Points	Team	Constructor	Time/Gap
1	VINALES MAVERICK	12	SPA	12	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	19'49.636
2	MARQUEZ MARC	93	SPA	9	Team Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	1.039
3	MARTIN JORGE	89	SPA	7	Pramac Racing	Ducati	1.122
4	BAGNAIA FRANCESCO	1	ITA	6	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	4.155
5	MILLER JACK	43	AUS	5	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	4.329
6	BASTIANINI ENEA	23	ITA	4	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	4.384
7	ACOSTA PEDRO	31	SPA	3	Red Bull GASGAS Tech 3	KTM	5.088
8	ESPARGARO ALEIX	41	SPA	2	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	6.161
9	QUARTARARO FABIO	20	FRA	1	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	7.501
10	FERNANDEZ RAUL	25	SPA	0	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia	8.484
11	BEZZECCHI MARCO	72	ITA	0	Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	9.529
12	OLIVEIRA MIGUEL	88	POR	0	Trackhouse Racing	Aprilia	10.519
13	MARQUEZ ALEX	73	SPA	0	Team Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	11.458
14	MIR JOAN	36	SPA	0	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	14.035
15	FERNANDEZ AUGUSTO	37	SPA	0	Red Bull GASGAS Tech 3	KTM	14.853
16	MORBIDELLI FRANCO	21	ITA	0	Pramac Racing	Ducati	16.049
17	NAKAGAMI TAKAAKI	30	JPN	0	LCR Honda	Honda	16.398
18	MARINI LUCA	10	ITA	0	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	24.907
19	ZARCO JOHANN	5	FRA	DNF	LCR Honda	Honda	DNF
20	DI GIANNANTONIO FABIO	49	ITA	DNF	Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	DNF
21	BINDER BRAD	33	RSA	DNF	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	DNF
22	RINS ALEX	42	SPA	DNF	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	DNF

Rider standings

Pos.	Rider	Num	Nation	Points	Team	Constructor
1	BAGNAIA FRANCESCO	1	ITA	37	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati
2	MARTIN JORGE	89	SPA	35	Pramac Racing	Ducati
3	BINDER BRAD	33	RSA	29	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM
4	MARQUEZ MARC	93	SPA	27	Team Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati
5	VINALES MAVERICK	12	SPA	19	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia
6	BASTIANINI ENEA	23	ITA	19	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati
7	ESPARGARO ALEIX

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