Joan Mir and Honda, what a blow in Thailand: points thrown away because of an "external supplier"

Honda did not achieve what it hoped for at the Thailand GP, but there’s no concern: here is Mir’s analysis.

Much has been said about Aprilia’s strength during the MotoGP weekend in Buriram, Ducati’s defeat, KTM’s breakthrough with Pedro Acosta, and the massive difficulties of the new Yamaha project. And Honda? It was certainly not a 2026 Thailand Grand Prix in which they achieved what they had envisioned. The most competitive rider was Joan Mir: tenth in Qualifying, seventh in the Sprint, climbing up to fifth before being forced to retire about four laps from the end of the long race. The Spaniard has more than a few regrets.

His teammate Luca Marini finished tenth in both sessions of the weekend, while the LCR duo Zarco-Moreira totaled 8 points (one fewer than the factory HRC team). The difficult conditions encountered in Thailand also put the RC213V to the test.

Mir can only be bitter about the outcome of his first Grand Prix of the 2026 MotoGP calendar, but he still had good feelings on his Honda RC213V before he had to stop: "We had a good race," he told Motosan, "but in the end we didn’t score any points. I enjoyed riding the bike, I think we were very competitive. In warm-up we made steady progress and I was able to push really hard during the race. I managed the tire quite well until, four laps from the end, I had to stop suddenly because I started to feel a lot of vibrations."

The two-time world champion recounted what he felt when he was forced to slow his RC213V and abandon the race in Buriram, something very disappointing for him and the Honda HRC team: "The bike started slipping in sixth gear, the electronics weren’t working properly. The bike, overall, wasn’t working well. Something happened, we need to understand what. It’s a shame because we did a great job all weekend, we didn’t make mistakes, we got 100% out of our package. And then, when the easiest moment came, when I was already in the top 5 and just had to bring the bike to the finish, I had this problem. We were rather unlucky."

The high temperatures in Thailand put all manufacturers under strain, as well as the Michelin tires. Mir clearly implies there was a tire-related issue, even if he didn’t explicitly mention Michelin: "Our external supplier was in poor condition. We all experienced very high wear. In the end, it turned out that a part of the tire from this external supplier was in much worse condition than normal. It wore more in the central part; we’ll have to see what happened."

In most cases, tire drop-off happens gradually, whereas Mir suddenly found himself in a condition that made it impossible to continue the race. Certainly, this is something Honda and Michelin have analyzed and will continue to study to ensure that something like this does not happen again in other situations with high temperatures. The disappointment remains for a good haul of points that vanished, but the MotoGP season is long and the Honda HRC team will have chances to bounce back.

The article with the interview in Spanish on Motosan.es