Joan Mir has revealed that trying to arm his front start-device was the reason he and Miguel Oliveira collided on the warm-up lap for the Dutch TT.
KTM’s Oliveira ran into the back of Mir’s Suzuki as the latter hit the brakes hard to line-up in his starting spot on the warm-up lap, the 2020 MotoGP World Champion doing so in order to activate his hole-shot device, the Portuguese rider “definitely not expecting him to brake that hard.”
While Mir escaped with little-to-no damage, Oliviera suffered the loss of his brake lever protector as well as one of the aerodynamic wings on the front right of his RC16, an issue that plagued him throughout the Assen sprint en-route to a ninth place finish, Mir ending up one spot ahead at the chequered flag in eighth.
Having explained his part in the Oliveira incident, Mir also detailed why he came together with VR46 Ducati’s Luca Marini as the race got underway, the Spaniard reckoning an unfortunate-timed wheelie from the Italian was to blame for his second collision of the encounter.
“What happened with Miguel (Oliveira) is that I arrived to my starting point and then braked hard to activate the holeshot (device), and for some reason he didn’t expect me to brake and touched me,” explained Mir.
“I think he lost his wing because it was a pretty hard hit, but luckily we could start the race.
“Then with Luca (Marini) I started pretty well, and because I was faster than him off the start I could move to the left, but then he wheelied a bit and went to the inside and we both touched.
“Luckily we could both continue the race because that was not a good place for a crash.”
Oliveira added that he feels the duo were lucky to avoid a “worse” accident due to the rear to front tyre nature of the hit, the three-time premier class race winner also explaining how the loss of a good chunk of his front aero made for a challenging contest at times as he wrestled with his RC16 through the faster parts of the Assen circuit.
“The incident just before the start was Joan (Mir) activating his start device in his spot, so I definitely was not expecting him to brake that hard,” said Oliveira.
“I was just looking for my spot, and it was for sure an incident that could have been worse because I hit his back wheel with my front tyre, so it could have been worse.
“I broke my front lever protector and the wing on the right side, and it became quite difficult to ride without it as the bike was a bit unstable in the fast parts like sectors 2 and 4.
“I probably lost around a tenth-of-a-second (laptime) overall, but more the consistency as I was having moments and huge tankslappers where I had to re-group, and therefore lost time.”
