An intense Friday in Silverstone had Joan Mir and Luca Marini in the mix from the start, ultimately ending the day in 12th and 16th as narrow margins again made the difference.
A picture-perfect British Spring day opened the Grand Prix of the United Kingdom on the outskirts of Towcester, the Honda HRC Castrol team eagerly rolling out of pit lane to start another weekend of MotoGP action. With the addition of Aleix Espargaro as a wild card, Friday would be a busy day of data gathering for Honda HRC’s engineers.
Joan Mir was able to run without any major issues after his heavy fall in France, the #36 able to continue challenging the front runners throughout both sessions. Concluding Friday with a best lap of 1’57.917, two seconds faster than his Qualifying time from 2024, left Mir to rue an issue on his final run which stopped him from defending his spot in the top ten. Less than a tenth of a second from the top ten, the 2020 MotoGP World Champion will do battle in Q1 tomorrow and clearly has the speed to challenge for a transfer spot with his pace on long runs being amongst the best in the field.
On the other side of the Honda HRC Castrol garage, Luca Marini improved his time by over a second and a half between the morning and the afternoon. Missing out on the top ten, Marini and his team focused on the information gathered and will look to apply it tomorrow for further gains. The Italian continues to work on finding these crucial final tenths to regularly join the mix for the top ten and with today’s learnings will be in the mix with his teammate come Q1 on Saturday morning.
Action resumes on Friday at 11:10 Local Time with Free Practice 2 before a critical Q1 session at 11:50 Local Time. Once the grid is set, the MotoGP Sprint is scheduled to run over 10 laps at 16:00 Local Time.
