– The Honda RC213V in the technical specification for the MotoGP season 2026 has proven to be quite competitive in races, but its performance in qualifying is rather mixed.
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Although the RC213V has been further optimized compared to 2025, both the factory riders and the riders in the satellite team LCR find it difficult to consistently match the qualifying performance of riders competing for European manufacturers.
While all four Honda regular riders – Luca Marini, Joan Mir, Diogo Moreira, Johann Zarco – have achieved remarkable results in sprints and Grands Prix in the first half of the 2026 season, qualifying remains a weakness in comparison. As a result, Honda riders often start races from relatively far back and have to fight their way forward.
Marini is the one of the four Honda regular riders who has the greatest difficulty with a fast lap. Although he has scored by far the most world championship points of all Honda riders in the first half of the season MotoGP overall standings 2026, the Italian has only managed to reach the Q2 segment of qualifying twice.
Qualifying performance of Honda riders 2026
| Rider | Q2 appearances | Best starting position |
|---|---|---|
| Luca Marini | 2 | 9th |
| Joan Mir | 7 | 5th |
| Diogo Moreira | 3 | 5th |
| Johann Zarco | 4 | 2nd |
“For my part, I find that I always improve my performance in Q1 compared to practice. The problem is that someone else improves even more,” says Marini and has a theory: “We know that a few manufacturers hold back some performance for Saturday. They don’t show everything on Friday, but only on Saturday morning.”
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“We, on the other hand, give 100 percent from the first free practice. I am always very close to qualifying directly in practice [for Q2]. But in Q1 we repeatedly faced very strong riders and very strong manufacturers who caused us difficulties. Our goal now is to be faster on Friday afternoons,” says Marini.
The Honda factory rider from Italy does not want to commit, however, on whether the other manufacturers deliberately hide their true pace on Friday, or if they simply find more pace overnight before qualifying: “At the moment I don’t know. In the past, it was the case that the engine was not stressed as much on Friday to save it for Saturday and Sunday.”
Marini’s teammate Joan Mir has established himself as a regular Q2 contender in the first half of the 2026 season. But the 2020 MotoGP world champion has also often had difficulties in qualifying to fully exploit the potential of the RC213V. At the Brno weekend, Mir explained that the turbulent air from motorcycles ahead prevented him from optimally using the slipstream.
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