Honda’s Joan Mir earns best result of the season at scorching Indian GP, Marquez makes a classic comeback

INDIA: In a scorching Indian GP, Joan Mir started in fourth place and maintained his position alongside the Repsol Honda Team machine of Marquez as the pair hunted the riders ahead. Mir settled into a comfortable fifth with Quartararo just ahead of him, while Brad Binder hunted him down. An impressive save in the closing laps meant the double World Champion was forced to concede fourth place to the South African. Rallying in the closing laps, Mir ended the race just over half a second behind Binder and took fifth place, his best result as a Honda rider.

Meanwhile, Marquez shot off the line and immediately hooked himself to the back of the leading trio. Unfortunately, at Turn 1 on lap five, Marquez fell but remounted within just eight seconds and rejoined in 16th place. From here, he cut through the field and found himself back inside the top ten by lap 14. The eight-time World Champion would take ninth at the flag, a solid result considering the fall.

The entire Repsol Honda Team now heads directly to Japan for Honda’s home race at the Motegi circuit.

Marquez said, “If you just looked at the final result and see ninth you wouldn’t know the whole story of our race – but to achieve what could be considered our ‘normal’ result after a crash is a positive. It was a really small crash but I was pushing very hard to stay in the slipstream of the bikes ahead, I went a bit wide and just fell. I came into this race with the motivation of the Sprint podium, so when I saw Pecco and Martin make a mistake I decided I needed to push. This led to the mistake. The most important thing was finishing the race, overall our rhythm was very close to Quartararo so I think we can be overall happy with what we have done this weekend.”

Mir added, “A great race today. I am super happy with our performance over the weekend and of course, to finish in fifth position is a big boost for us. The team and I did a great job understanding the bike more, and how you need to make the lap time and be fast this weekend. On the other hand, we had a small thing at the end of the race that meant I lost ground to Fabio and we dropped back. Finally in the end we were able to push and try to catch Binder after I almost crashed. It was a big save! But yeah, a really nice race overall and I have enjoyed my time in India. Let’s keep it up in Japan“

Indian Grand Prix Results