Circuito de Jerez - Angel Nieto
Marini and Mir complete productive Jerez Test
Honda HRC Castrol remained in Spain for the first in-season test of the 2026 season, Luca Marini and Joan Mir completing a total of 122 laps between them and left with a number of interesting insights.
Another beautiful day in the South of Spain made for a busy Monday, Luca Marini and Joan Mir taking full advantage of the eight hours on track. The theme of the day was small details, Honda HRC’s engineers eager to explore all the setup parameters of the Honda RC213V without the demands of a MotoGP Grand Prix weekend.
A best time of 1’36.896 in the afternoon saw Luca Marini finish the day in 14th overall, the Italian content with what he and his team achieved. Working until the very last moments of the test as always, Marini was able to back-to-back test a number of setup and electronic setting differences with the two bikes available to him.
On the other said of the Honda HRC Castrol garage, Joan Mir was just 0.081s behind his teammate for 15th. During his close to 60 laps, the #36 was able to define the direction he feels needs to be followed to make short term gains in the coming races.
Now the team will begin their preparations for Round 5, the French GP on May 08 to 10.
Luca Marini 10 Honda HRC Castrol
“A really busy day for us here, I was hoping to finish earlier but we kept on working right until the very last moment. In some areas we were able to make some small steps but there was not one big thing, lots of small pieces which can help to add together for something more in the future. Especially on the electronics we were looking for some improvements with acceleration and here we were able to make some positives. These are things which I think can help us in Le Mans where we can see how things are in a normal GP, always in a test you have a lot of grip so it’s not always a true representation. A good day of learning.”
Joan Mir 36 Honda HRC Castrol
“Trying to understand the direction of our setting to make some more progress in the future, so it was a busy day. There were many ideas we had to try and make another step, many things that you can’t try during a normal weekend so today has been productive. For the future we understand what we need to do and I am clear with the direction we need to go. Hopefully we can already see some short term gains in the next few races”
