Honda looked to have made genuine gains with its 2024 bike when it appeared at the Valencia test last November, but that proved to be a false dawn.
HRC sits last in the constructors’ table with just eight points after the opening two rounds of the 2024 season, with Mir scoring a best of 11th in Portugal.
Honda riders occupied the last four spots on the timesheets at the end of Friday’s practice for the Americas Grand Prix, with Mir suffering a crash late to end up 20th and 2.047s off the pace.
Already admitting he was doubtful of a good showing coming into the weekend, Mir says Honda appears to be “paying the consequences” for taking the wrong development direction with the 2024 RC213V.
“Yesterday I was not very convinced about today,” he said on Friday.
“We are having some problems that, more struggles than probably what I expected after the tests in the beginning of the season.
“This problem in one track and the other and the other is not improving, we are not improving.
“I cannot really speak about what the problem is, but I think we took a direction that was not the right one and now we are paying the consequences. We must continue working.
Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“The thing is we detect the problem probably and now we have to work on it. The reality is that today my position is probably not the real one, because I had the crash, but I think I didn’t have the chance to go to Q2.
“Last year I was closer, I missed the Q2 for a couple of tenths. At the moment, we are struggling more than last year at this track and also Portimao.”
Asked if he was confident HRC could develop its way out of its problems, Mir replied: “The important thing is to take responsibility about what is happening, change fast and try to modify fast the direction.
“This is very important. Here is where we need to be clever with the test, that concession will be very helpful to do it.
“Well, I will say as a rider I feel strong, I’m pushing, I don’t give up but at the moment we have a limit.”
Honda scored its last grand prix victory at the Circuit of the Americas 12 months ago courtesy of Alex Rins, but Mir notes that the braking potential and agility of the bike has worsened in that time.
“Before the braking and the turning on this bike was one thing that was pretty good, and we can see that it was very agile – more agile than the other bikes. Now it isn’t,” he concluded.
