A last push for Luca Marini and Joan Mir as they aim to end the season on high in Barcelona, the pair finishing almost nose to tail in 16th and 18th respectively on Friday. The waning light of Autumn made for a chilly start to proceedings around the 4.66 kilom View this email in your browser   Practice Report Friday, Nov 15th 2024   Solidarity Grand Prix of Barcelona MotoGP 2024   Round 20 Working until the end – Solidarity GP preparations begin for Repsol Honda Team A last push for Luca Marini and Joan Mir as they aim to end the season on high in Barcelona, the pair finishing almost nose to tail in 16th and 18th respectively on Friday. The waning light of Autumn made for a chilly start to proceedings around the 4.66 kilometres of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but hot or cold – the Repsol Honda Team had work to do. With the aim of returning to the top of the MotoGP World Championship, every lap and point of data is valuable for the Repsol Honda Team and Honda HRC staff – the riders making the most of all available track time. Starting the day by comfortably running inside the top ten, Luca Marini would improve his best lap time by over a second as he fought to remain in the top ten. Eventually finishing in 16th overall, the Italian was half a second shy of the top ten and a direct trip to Q2. The evolution of the track overnight and with more running before Qualifying will be key as Marini aims to emulate the speed of Johann Zarco and Takaaki Nakagami. Joan Mir would end Friday just under two tenths from his teammate, walking away unharmed from a late crash at Turn 10 in the afternoon. The #36 had been able to set a steady rhythm throughout the day, building his speed and improving the feeling with his Honda RC213V. Working especially on rear grip, Mir made improvements over the course of the day and remains hopeful of delivering a strong Saturday showing. LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco was a stand out performer on the Honda RC213V as he ended the day in fourth, 0.279s back from the top spot. Luca Marini  10 16th  01'39.994 "Overall we have been able to have a productive day and understand the situation of our weekend, good to start building the base. With the soft tyre the grip is unbelievable, especially in the first lap. The track is in a strange condition; I think there was a car race here last week, so it felt a bit weird. It's not worse, just different and I think it will keep improving as the weekend goes on. I think that the performance of Zarco and also Taka are very encouraging for us, it shows that there is speed and potential in our package and we just need to keep working to unlock it all." Joan Mir  36 18th  1'40.125 "I crashed with my second tyre in the 'qualifying' of today which certainly limited how competitive we were. Tonight, we need to check what happened and compare the second tyre, I was feeling strong with the first tyre and make a pretty good lap. The performance of the bike improved over the course of the day but we still have a bit of work to do with the rear grip. There's margin to improve and I think we can make quite an interesting Qualifying tomorrow. It will be important to see how the temperature and grip changes from today to tomorrow." Solidarity Grand Prix of Barcelona - Friday Practice Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Constructor Time/Gap 1 Bagnaia Francesco 1 ITA Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 1'38.918 2 Bezzecchi Marco 72 ITA Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team Ducati 0.080 3 Espargaro Aleix 41 SPA Aprilia Racing Aprilia 0.107 4 Zarco Johann 5 FRA LCR Honda Honda 0.279 5 Martin Jorge 89 SPA Pramac Racing Ducati 0.296 6 Vinales Maverick 12 SPA Aprilia Racing Aprilia 0.306 7 Marquez Alex 73 SPA Team Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 0.377 8 Marquez Marc 93 SPA Team Gresini Racing MotoGP Ducati 0.443 9 Acosta Pedro 31 SPA Red Bull GASGAS Tech 3 KTM 0.500 10 Bastianini Enea 23 ITA Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 0.549 11 Miller Jack 43 AUS Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 0.570 12 Nakagami Takaaki 30 JPN LCR Honda Honda 0.838 13 Quartararo Fabio 20 FRA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 0.873 14 Rins Alex 42 SPA Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 0.876 15 Morbidelli Franco 21 ITA Pramac Racing Ducati 0.892 16 Marini Luca 10 ITA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1.076 17 Binder Brad 33 RSA Red Bull KTM Factory Racing KTM 1.096 18 Mir Joan 36 SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1.207 19 Fernandez Raul 25 SPA Trackhouse Racing Aprilia 1.221 20 Oliveira Miguel 88 POR Trackhouse Racing Aprilia 1.486 21 Fernandez Augusto 37 SPA Red Bull GASGAS Tech 3 KTM 1.717 22 Pirro Michele 51 ITA Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team Ducati 1.868 23 Bradl Stefan 6 GER HRC Test Team Honda 2.110 Copyright Free Images For editorial use only, click here to download images. Location Information In 1989, through the joint collaboration of the Catalan Autonomous Government, the Montmeló Town Council and the Royal Automobile Club of Catalunya (RACC), work began on giving one of Europe's most beautiful cities a state of the art race track to match. The Circuit de Catalunya opened on the doorstep… read more. Length 4.627 kilometres / 2.875 miles Width 12 metres Left corners 5 Right corners 8 Longest straight 1.047 kilometres / 0.651 miles Constructed 1991 Modified 2018 Circuit Records Pole Position 1m38.190s (170.7km/h) Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia, 2024) Race Lap 1m39.664 (168.2km/h) Pedro Acosta (KTM, 2024) Race Time 40'11.726 (166.8km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati,2024) 2024 Sprint Winner Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) 2024 Race Winner Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló, Catalunya, Spain –  View in Google Maps www.circuitcat.com You are receiving this email because you have registered your interest with Honda Racing Corporation If you no longer want to receive emails from Repsol Honda Team - MotoGP, please click here to unsubscribe .