Joan Mir personal manager Paco Sanchez has confirmed they have no plans to terminate Mir’s contract with Honda early.
Mir has been sidelined with an injury for the last three Grand Prix weekends. The former MotoGP world champion has not yet managed to break any pots on the RC213V.
He actually missed four of the eight main races due to injuries, and with just 5 points made, he is currently only in 26th place overall.
“No, we are not currently looking at other options. The goal is to fulfill the contract with Honda and try to make the RC213V competitive. That is certainly not an easy mission.” Sanchez said.
“There have been some great riders at Honda over the years, like [Jorge] Lorenzo, Pol [Espargaro], Alex Marquez and [Dani] Pedrosa in his last years, all of whom struggled.
“Even [Marc] Marquez had a hard time winning, because although he still won, it often came with a brutal number of crashes.” Sanchez added.
This year, MotoGP has a new format that includes a Sprint on Saturday and only the two Friday practice sessions count toward direct qualification for Q2.
The schedule is therefore particularly intense with riders having to fight from the start of a lap.
Sanchez was therefore asked whether this had an influence on the performance of Mir in the first half of the season. The response from the Spanish manager left nothing to be desired.
“This new format destroys the riders both physically and psychologically. It’s certainly not just Honda, look at Pol [Espargaro], [Miguel] Oliveira or [Enea] Bastianini, none of whom are riding a Honda and yet were or are still at home because of injuries, because of the stress and the new formula.” Sanchez said.
“The riders are under enormous pressure from minute one on Friday. The statistics are there, they don’t lie. It is not a thought but reality. I have never seen a championship with so many injuries as this year.” he added.
