Buriram, 1 November, 2024: Hard-charging Joan Mir battles it out for the top ten with an incredible recovery, ending in 13th. Experiments continue for Luca Marini on his way to conservative 19th in Thailand on Saturday.
Saturday morning in Buriram showed a lot of promise for the Repsol Honda Team after a busy evening of work to unlock the full potential of the Honda RC213V. Improving to 12th in FP2, Joan Mir was satisfied with the improvements made to race pace. Meanwhile, Luca Marini continued to experiment with a different setup direction on his Honda.
Struggles in Qualifying would instantly be put to bed for Mir who sliced through a third of the field on the first lap of the Sprint, gaining seven positions. Battling it out with the likes of Miller, Aleix Espargaro and Quartararo, the 36 remained locked in an intense fight for the top ten for the majority of the race. Easing his attack as his tyre began to drop, Mir was able to put together a Sprint which helped to restore his feeling after recent difficulties. Crossing the line in 13th place, Mir walked away with some of his most positive feelings of the year – enjoying hard battles and able to make up significant ground under braking. Bringing this speed and competitive feeling into Sunday is the objective, while looking to improve his late race pace further.
A complicated weekend continued for Luca Marini as he explored a different direction with the setup of his Repsol Honda Team RC213V. Qualifying in 21st and finishing the Sprint in 19th did not reflect the progress Marini has made in recent races, something he is aiming to fix on Sunday. Marini and his team are looking to return to a setup more akin to what he has been using in Indonesia, Japan and Australia. Even with results below his expectations, the Italian has continued to collect important data and information for the future development of the Honda RC213V.
Sunday’s 26-lap Grand Prix of Thailand is scheduled to start at 15:00 Local Time with some forecasts already calling for rain. Everything is building for another wild and unpredictable Thai GP.
Luca Marini (19th)
“We did not have our best day of the year today, our level from Friday to Saturday remained the same and when we put in a new tyre we aren’t able to gain that much performance. In the past races we were more competitive and today Mir and Zarco both had more pace, so we need to keep trying some different things. I think the experiment with the bike setup this weekend has shown it’s not the direction to follow. Tomorrow with the ‘standard’ setting I hope to be more competitive and fight with my teammate.”
Joan Mir (13th)
“I really enjoyed the Sprint today, I was able to recover a lot on the brakes and had a lot of really good battles with riders like Quartararo, Miller and Aleix. The first laps especially were really good and I felt really strong. Of course, everything was complicated by Qualifying, which has been the case a lot this year. In practice this morning I felt really good, then with the new tyre in Q1 we struggled and started very far. To come from 19th to fight for the top ten is something we have to focus on and be happy about.”