Why Joan Mir wasn’t encouraged by Honda’s best MotoGP result of the year

Johann Zarco guided Honda to a solid seventh at Jerez, but Joan Mir says that doesn’t improve the Japanese manufacturer’s MotoGP prospects for the year

Joan Mir believes Johann Zarco’s performance at the Spanish Grand Prix does not alter Honda’s overall situation in MotoGP, despite the marque securing its best finish of the season.

LCR rider Zarco was able to mix with the Ducatis and Aprilias for much of Sunday’s race at Jerez, consolidating fifth position after a slow launch from the first row.

A late drop in tyre performance allowed Trackhouse duo Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura to move ahead, but seventh place still marked Honda’s best finish in a Sunday race this year.

It further lent credence to claims that poor one-lap pace is holding back Honda in MotoGP, with the RC213V having again proved competitive in race trim.

However, Mir believes Zarco’s excellent qualifying performance in mixed conditions actually skewed the picture, suggesting the result owed more to track position than outright speed.

“I’m happy for Johann, but we know here that everyone’s pace is very similar,” he said. “If you start up front, you can afford to ease off a bit and still finish in seventh place.

“Someone in front crashed [Marc Marquez], then it’s eighth. Whatever the case, it doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know about this bike.

Joan Mir, Honda HRC

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

“We start up front, we fall back. If the race is five laps more, he will finish 10th, and if it's 10 laps more, he will finish 15th. And if you try anything else, you end up on the ground like what’s happened to us lately.

“So, it's not a matter of what the result that the other can accomplish. I know my potential, I know everything, but the reality is that we must accept the potential of the actual package and react.”

While Honda has made tangible gains compared to last year, Ducati and Aprilia have also delivered significant improvements to strengthen their stranglehold on MotoGP. On Sunday, the two Italian manufacturers locked out seven spots inside the top 10, leaving just three positions up for grabs for Honda and KTM.

KTM has fixed its tyre degradation issues to a large extent, with Enea Bastianini also emerging as a credible challenger over the last two weekends to assist Pedro Acosta’s efforts on the factory bike.

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Honda has had a trickier run lately, not helped by Mir crashing out of the opening three grands prix of the season, including after qualifying fifth in Austin.

While Zarco took satisfaction from his result at Jerez, he stressed that aerodynamics remained the weak link for Honda in 2026.

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

“We worked on set-up, I'm sure we can improve the pace and the feeling on the bike by finding an even better set-up, plus me improving my riding on the bike,” he said. “So we need to make this compromise better and extract the best of what we have.

“If we look at the bike from outside, maybe we missed something on aero and on the fairing, but this won't change for the year. That's the limit of Honda at the moment.

“They are working on it, [but] they didn’t find anything better in aerodynamics. So we cannot think about the other bikes. There are differences and that's why we lose. We need to find out how to use our material better.”