With the departure of Marc Marquez, Honda will change – Joan Mir looks ahead to what role he will take over – He doesn’t care who his teammate will be
Without Marc Marquez, a new era will begin for Honda in 2024. The situation will also change for Joan Mir. Because while everything in the box has revolved around Marquez so far, this reference factor will be gone.
“I wanted to share the pit with Marc,” commented Mir on the general situation. “You test yourself against the best in his house. But I don’t care who will replace him. A rider with experience could also be an advantage for me.”
“A rider who now has a better bike than ours. If he comes from another bike, he can see things from a different perspective. You can then try it yourself and it might be a step forward. All of that helps a lot.”
“In the current situation, I can have a little more control over decisions. Whoever comes in will be new. That’s what happened to me last year at the Valencia test. Logically, Marquez determined the direction that the development had to take.”
“That was also the case when I joined Suzuki. At that time Alex [Rins] decided which engine we would use because he had more experience. The engine for 2020 was then decided by me.”
“If I can make those decisions now [at Honda], then that will be very good for me,” Mir is convinced. However, the former world champion has not seen Honda engineers rely solely on feedback from Marquez this year.
Denn: “I can state that Marc’s statements and mine are always very similar. Although he put the prototype aside [at the Misano test for 2024] and I wanted to test it a bit more. But in general, our statements on development always went hand in hand.”
“I don’t see Marc winning races and the rest being in the shit. In the past that was the case, but not now,” Mir finds. “I don’t see the bike being built for him. If he goes, maybe the direction of development will be more difficult.”
“That was the case during his injury. But I don’t think the bike is built for him. In my opinion, the bike just doesn’t work right now.” Honda is in last place in the manufacturers’ standings after 16 race weekends. “Nobody expected me to win the world championship in my second year with Suzuki and be third in the world championship the following year. With Marc no longer here, not so much will change. Something will change, and I hope it will be positive.”
“In my time here I could see that the bike was not designed for one rider. I could see everything I needed,” Mir holds. “If I asked for a bike that Marc didn’t like, I got it.”
“If I wanted something Marc didn’t like, I always got it. That means I never felt like a second rider. I don’t think that exists in the factory teams now either. How it is in the private teams, I don’t know.”
“Maybe next year I will decide which bike we will take. For me it will be positive, I think, because I don’t have to fight with anyone for it. With Marc this year I saw that our statements were the same.”
“The development has always been in one direction. It’s not now that I have to talk about something I haven’t already said. The information is there, the problems are the same. I have seen changes in Honda management. We’ll see how important and good that will be for the future.”
Mir has scored world championship points just three times this season. Fifth place in India was his only top-10 result.
How the situation will change for Mir
But will it be easier for Mir personally next year without Marquez constantly saying in public how bad the RC213V is? “In this regard, it will probably be more positive. The pressure is always high in this team. They always want to win.”
“Only a win is good enough. I share that attitude. But I’m in a different situation than Marc,” Mir says. “He has shown everything with this team. I wasn’t surprised by his departure because his situation is very difficult.”
“But if I were to leave from my point of view, I would have failed in this project. I don’t want to leave like that. I still believe that together we can create something good. “
