The Honda factory duo Marc Márquez and Joan Mir is outside the top 13 on the first day of the MotoGP test in Portimao. “We’re missing at least half a second,” the two Spaniards complain.
Honda is still awaiting the step promised by the 2023 version of the RC213V. This weekend, the Algarve International Circuit in Portimao hosts the final pre-season test before the 2023 MotoGP season opens at the same circuit in two weeks.
On Saturday, the first of the two days of testing, the two Honda works drivers only finished 14th and 19th on the timesheets. New signing Joan Mir was a little quicker than Marc Márquez. The gap to the leaders was more than a second for both.
In addition, both Mir and Márquez fell during the day. Alex Rins did better. The LCR-Honda newcomer stayed in the saddle to finish P11 on the timesheets, 0.8 seconds back. Marc Márquez makes it to the point after 1.4 seconds behind. “In the afternoon we tried a lot of bigger things and I lost the thread a bit,” said the Honda veteran in an interview with “MotoGP.com”.
Factory Honda driver Marc Márquez: “Focus on what we have”
“The rhythm wasn’t as bad as the day’s result suggests,” says Márquez, but he’s mainly referring to the morning session. He has a very clear requirement for the Honda team leadership around Alberto Puig and the new technical director Ken Kawauchi.
“Tomorrow we have to stop working on big concepts. We have to concentrate more on what we have. We have to make the best of it,” says Márquez and answers when asked how much Honda is currently missing: “It’s on paper it at least half a second per lap.”
With regard to the chassis, Márquez “set his mind on the one that we already used in Sepang”.
The Honda star is thinking back to the Malaysia test that took place in early February, where Honda also did a lot of concept work and had four versions of the RC213V for Márquez alone.
Factory Honda driver Mir admits: “I don’t have a particularly good feeling”
Honda newcomer Joan Mir, who was 0.4 seconds faster than Marquez in Portimao on Saturday, openly admits in an interview with “MotoGP.com”: “I don’t want to lie. I don’t have a particularly good feeling.”
“Today was a difficult day. I still miss the right feeling on the bike. At the moment we’re still trying to understand which steps are needed so that I can ride fast and thus get closer to the top,” said Mir.
In the afternoon, the Spaniard, who joined Honda from Suzuki, was just about to improve a bit. Immediately after his lap time of 1:39.776 minutes, which brought him to P14 in the classification, he crashed.
“It happened in a sector where we have big problems for whatever reason,” reports Mir and explains: “Because I was faster in other sectors, we now have to find out why we lose so much in certain corners.”
Honda works driver Mir sees “the fast corners” as a problem area
“It’s mainly the fast corners that cause us difficulties,” Mir confesses when asked and emphasizes: “Because my feeling isn’t great at the moment, I try to go over the limit and then crash. That’s exactly what happened to me today.”
But I have already recognized an area in which he thinks he can start. “The electronics of this bike is something I still have to understand. In Sepang we took steps in the right direction, but on this track here it needs different settings. At the moment my feeling while riding is not good,” said the Honda newcomer.
After all: As a positive aspect of the day, Mir points out that “many laps were made and a lot of information was collected”. Despite his fall, he managed 74 laps. Teammate Márquez, who crashed in the morning, completed 78 laps.
Márquez, whose crash happened at Turn 14 – the penultimate corner of the circuit – reveals: “I was just on my way back to the pits. I was driving very slowly and wasn’t fully focused. I hit a bump and it’s me The front wheel slipped off. It was annoying, but nothing happened. I hardly lost any time because the wing was only slightly damaged.”
Honda driver Rins: “We haven’t sorted everything out yet”
The fastest rider on a Honda RC213V on Saturday was LCR Team rider Alex Rins. Just like Mir, he made the switch from Suzuki to the Honda camp in the winter. And so far, at least, he sounds more confident than his former teammate.
“It was a positive day,” says Rins, after being 0.8 seconds down on the leader in P11 in the daily classification. “We tested a lot of things and I’m quite happy. In the morning I was out on the chassis for the first time that the other team had tested in Sepang. I got along well with it and stayed with it for the rest of the day.”
Aside from the chassis, Rins has been working with crew chief Christophe Bourguignon on “the swingarm, the suspension and a few other things I’m not allowed to talk about”.
“The pace was okay, but we haven’t sorted everything out yet. Tomorrow we want to focus primarily on the aerodynamics. We haven’t been able to do that today because there aren’t enough parts yet. Apart from that, I want to do it tomorrow, like in Sepang, drive a sprint and a race simulation,” said Rins.