MotoGP 2024: Joan Mir, Luca Marini bullish as Honda Team get straight back to work in Mugello
Italy: Team Honda riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini will get back into action soon after an intense burst of action with back-to-back races and a test as the 2024 MotoGP World Championship season gathers pace at the Gran Premio d’Italia in Mugello, Italy.
The first back-to-back weekend of the season sees the Honda Team travel from Barcelona to Mugello for another weekend of MotoGP action. A classic on the MotoGP calendar, the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello is known for its incredibly straight and fast, flowing corners. The layout of the circuit will give both teams and riders a great opportunity to continue collecting data and working towards the future.
Local hero Marini enters the weekend eager to embrace the boost from his home fans off the back of a weekend of progress in Barcelona. Recent upgrades and changes to the Honda RC213V have helped Marini to improve his feeling and close the distance to the other Honda riders, authoring a strong start to the Catalan GP where he challenged for top Honda honours.
On the other side of the Honda Team garage, Mir is targeting a return to his early-year form. Despite taking points and fighting for top Honda honours in Barcelona, Mir is hungry for more around the Italian track. His best premier class result at the track came in 2021 when he finished third.
Marini said he is looking forward to his home grand prix.
“Your home GP is always something nice and I am really excited to go there as a factory Honda rider for the first time. I really want to enjoy the weekend with the Italian fans and enjoy their support. We made progress in Barcelona and I know that we can keep building on what we found during our private Mugello test for this coming weekend,” said Marini.
“It’s all about making this progress at each round and continuing to feel better and better. You can understand a lot about a bike around Mugello so the weekend, and post-race test, will be very useful for us,” he added.
Mir said, “We have this race and a test before a bit of a break in the calendar. I want to extract the maximum possible from this weekend to recover from the tricky weekend we had in Barcelona. Everyone in the team and HRC are working hard to make improvements and continue development. We have some ideas already from the test we had here, so let’s keep on going and enjoy riding.”