Joan Mir says he has “recovered the good feelings” that went missing at Le Mans but admits he’s “not that fast” after Friday’s running at the MotoGP Aragon Grand Prix.
Mir qualified down in 14th at Le Mans and only managed 11th in the wet race, allowing Fabio Quartararo to extend his championship lead to 10 points.
The Suzuki rider was much stronger at Aragon in the cold conditions on Friday, ending the day fourth on the combined times – albeit 0.730 seconds off the best pace.
Mir was happy with his feeling on his GSX-RR, but is wary Yamaha – which locked out the top three in both sessions on Friday – is a step ahead of Suzuki right now.
PLUS: Was the MotoGP French GP the disaster it seemed for the home hero?
“It was a good day, I felt very good even though no one has a brutal pace because the asphalt temperature is very low,” Mir said.
“I have recovered the good feelings that I did not have at Le Mans, although with such low temperatures nobody has had a good feeling.
“They [Yamaha] are really strong, they have great potential, all of them, so it means they are really fast.
“We are at the moment not that fast, so we are working on it. At the moment they have a bit of advantage.”
Mir’s main issue of getting soft tyres up to temperature for time attacks looked to have improved at Aragon, after he posted a 1m38.686s midway through FP2 on a fresh tyre.
Traffic on his final time attack at the end of the session meant he couldn’t close the seven-tenths gap he has to pacesetter Maverick Vinales, but says his feeling on fresh rubber “was great”.
“Today I felt great with the new tyre,” Mir said.
“With the first set, we just put the soft/soft to see how was my feeling. I was able to maintain 1m48 high, 1m49 low. For the conditions, that’s not a bad lap time.
“Then with the second set, I was not able to make one good lap. I got a bit disturbed by some Ducati guys and I was not able to do a good lap time.
“But anyway, the lap time is quite decent, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”