Honda's Marquez, Mir keep their cool to challenge for points in Austrian Sprint

Spielberg [Austria], August 19 : An incident-filled Sprint at the Red Bull Ring saw the Repsol Honda Team pair avoid major issues and collect valuable laps with HRC’s new aerodynamics package.
Aero work continued for Marc Marquez as he spent the day with the new package equipped on both his machines. Overnight work by the Repsol Honda Team and HRC engineers improved the #93’s feeling. A tricky Q1 saw Marquez unable to improve on a 1’29.479, lining up in 18th place as a result. When the lights went out for the Saturday Sprint, there was drama as soon as the first corner as a number of riders made contact and fell. Marc Marquez avoided the incident as he focused on chasing down the top ten. Sitting just behind Morbidelli for much of the race, Marquez put up a spirited defence as Viñales worked to recover from earlier problems. Crossing the line in tenth, Marquez narrowly missed out on a return to the points-scoring positions.
After a trying Friday, Joan Mir was able to unlock more of his potential on Saturday at the Red Bull Ring. The #36 led the Honda RC213V riders in Qualifying, earning 16th on the grid, two spots ahead of his teammate and prepared for the 14-lap dash. A good initial launch would see Mir gain several places but falls ahead into Turn One would force him to sit up and quickly lose those positions. From here it was a case of recovery for the 2020 World Champion, eventually crossing the line in 12th place. Just over two seconds behind his Repsol Honda Team stablemate, Mir was pleased with the progress made so far in the weekend.

Sunday’s Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich is scheduled to start at 14:00 Local Time. The Repsol Honda Team once again head into the weekend’s main event aiming to continue development work with an eye on the future.
“It was an interesting Sprint, when I tried the new aero yesterday I knew more or less what would happen in the Sprint – and it did happen. So it was good in a way to understand this new aero more. We’ve been working with a lot of different setups over the weekend, but we have a clear idea for what to do tomorrow. We benefitted a lot from the falls of others, we have to be honest. Without this we would have been in 15th position more or less. We keep on working and see what we can achieve in tomorrow’s main race,” said Honda rider Marc Marquez.
“I think today we were able to make a step over what we have had. I had a bit of trouble in the first corner with the problems in front so I lost all the positions I made at the start. After this I settled into my race and I was able to recover many positions, keeping a similar pace for the riders fighting for fifth to tenth. This shows we have had some improvements and I was able to be faster, let’s see what happens tomorrow,” said Honda rider Joan Mir.