Factory Honda rider Joan Mir believes the MotoGP concessions system didn’t help Honda gain any “advantage” over its rivals.
After a troubling few years, Yamaha and Honda were awarded further concessions to bridge the gap closer to its European rivals.
Honda facilitated private tests for its riders and experimented with different parts and engine specifications.
Despite these privileges, Honda recorded its worst performance in MotoGP history, gathering only 75 points from Mir and team-mate Luca Marini.
Upon questioning whether the concessions helped Honda, Mir replied: “This year, probably in the same place we are,” he told Autosport.
“I hope this helps us for the next one. But in the short term we didn’t get any advantage. We see it in the results [that there was no improvement].
“We have to find a way to get good pieces [on the bike] that help us to be faster. At the moment, we couldn’t get it.”
Joan Mir believes test team additions is ‘very good’
Mir stated that his 2024 schedule was more chaotic due to further testing in addition to race weekends.
In turn, this led the 2020 champion to feel unsure whether this schedule benefitted the development of the bike as initially expected.
As a result, Honda opted to expand its test team for the 2025 season, acquiring three-time MotoGP race winner Aleix Espargaro to accompany Stefan Bradl.
In addition, departing LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami will move to a test-focused role in Japan.
“The thing that the factory riders are able to test more, I don’t think that is an advantage because if the bike is better I would be faster,” he said.
“That’s why we have a test team. If we go to test something and we stay all day between one week and another one, we don’t rest psychologically.
“We go one test, race, one test, race [and so on]. Sometimes it’s worse, [not] better.
“That’s why we have a test team that now is being reinforced and we have to make them work to have proper stuff. What they think is working, we try [that] on the GPs and we see that it’s better.
“The test team was not [big] enough [this year],” he said. “We had just one test rider, and honestly we could improve a lot of the infrastructure of the test team, so they are doing it and I think this for the next year will be very good.”
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