Luca Marini’s theory on why Honda has been struggling in qualifying in MotoGP

Luca Marini believes Honda’s one-lap struggles in MotoGP stem from other manufacturers making bigger gains between Friday practice and qualifying.

While Honda has built on its breakthrough 2025 campaign to further fine-tune the RC213V, it has found it hard to consistently match the performance of its European rivals.

While all four Honda riders have scored notable results in sprints and grands prix, qualifying has remained a relative weakness, leaving them with more work to do on Sundays.

Out of the quartet, Marini has struggled the most over a single lap. Despite comfortably being Honda’s highest points scorer so far in 2026, he has progressed to Q2 on just two occasions in the opening 11 rounds.

The Italian believes Honda is already extracting close to its maximum performance on Fridays, while some rivals appear to find more pace before qualifying. 

“On my side, I think I always improve my performance in Q1 compared to practice. The problem is that somebody else improves more,” he lamented.

“We know that some manufacturers take a little bit of energy and power for Saturday and they don’t show everything on Friday but on Saturday morning, yes [they do]. 

“So, for us we are pushing at 100% from FP1.

“I think I’m very close every time to pass directly in the practice, but also in Q1 we had very strong riders and very strong manufacturers that forced some complications. We know that this is our target to be faster on Friday afternoon because it’s missing.”

Marini wouldn’t be drawn when asked if manufacturers were deliberately concealing their true pace on Friday or simply unlocking more speed overnight before qualifying: “At the moment, I don’t know. In the past, it was like this that on Friday you don’t use the engine so much to save some energy for Saturday and Sunday, which is more important.”

Marini’s team-mate Joan Mir has emerged as a regular Q2 contender this year, although he hasn’t always been able to convert his promising starting positions into strong results.

Using Brno as an example, the 2020 world champion explained that dirty air prevented him from making the most of a slipstream, exposing one of the bike’s weaknesses. 

“I expected more from qualifying, especially because on Friday the performance was higher. I thought that maybe by following [another rider] I was able to get something more, because I wanted to do a good lap time,” Mir said.

Joan Mir, Honda HRC

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images

“But I had more trouble following. I lost a bit where I am normally strong at, on the braking and approaching the corner. And when you follow that dirty air, it does not allow me to do that. 

“And then on the exit, it was hard, because my bike is not for the exit. Then I lost more than what I probably got by following. 

“But apart from that, we don’t have the package to fight for the pole position at the moment. It’s clear. Yes, for the second, third row. But with that problem, I was out of qualifying.”

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