Joan Mir finally got a good weekend at the new circuit in India. The Spanish Repsol Honda rider was able to be fast from the first practice on Friday, keeping the pace high until Sunday’s final race despite the crash in Saturday’s Sprint race.
In a debrief after the long race, the 2020 world champion stated that he had a mixed feeling despite the promising result:
– Yes, a mixed feeling after this race. Obviously very happy with the performance at the weekend. We did a great job to understand this bike and how to understand the good lines and be fast. At Misano I think the test was crucial as well. But on the other side I had a problem in the second part of the race, with vibration in the rear tyre.
Mir then went on to explain what the problem that affected him, saying that without it, he believed he had the pace to have accompanied Jorge Martín and Fabio Quartararo in the fight for second place:
– That was a shame because I was behind Fabio (Quartararo) very comfortable, controlling the tyre for the end of the race and then when this vibration appeared I thought I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race. It started very strong and then as it was skidding, more and more, it was disappearing and then when I went in, it was bad. So he conditioned the second part of the race. I think we could have been close to Jorge and Fabio today, honestly. But anyway it’s great to have this problem being up front. In Motegi we will see.