Luca Marini<\/a> qualified seventh on the grid and finished there in the sprint, though was confident he could have been a podium contender in the grand prix.<\/p>\nBut a clutch issue from the beginning dropped him to the back of the pack and forced him to retire after just three laps.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere was something with the clutch that we still need to analyse closely,\u201d he said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a problem right at the start. But you have to look at the positives of this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was three very good days, I was strong, and without this problem I would definitely have been able to fight with Joan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mir\u2019s third place marked the first podium for the factory Honda squad since Marc Marquez at the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great day for Honda, Joan was able to show the potential of the bike and it\u2019s a big boost for everyone who is involved in this project,\u201d Marini added.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWith this result for him and this result for me, the best thing we can do is go straight to Mandalika and get back to work immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am really looking forward to the rest of the year and continuing what we have shown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Third for Honda at Motegi adds to its two other podium appearances in 2025, following Johann Zarco\u2019s win at the French Grand Prix and runner-up spot at the British Grand Prix for LCR.<\/p>\n
With five rounds remaining this season, it has a 40-point advantage over Yamaha in the constructors\u2019 table and a 40 points deficit to third-placed KTM.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honda MotoGP rider Luca Marini says an issue with his bike\u2019s clutch forced him to retire at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,914,9398,9399,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-177841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-honda","11":"tag-joan-mir","12":"tag-luca-marini","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}