Team HRC completes its best weekend of the season so far at Magny-Cours

“Firstly, I want to say a big thank you to everyone on the team because, as always, they have worked incredibly hard both at home and at the track. In the last few races, our potential has been greater than what we've shown—especially on my side, as I was struggling with arm pump. Since the surgery, I’ve felt better, and already at Portimão we had a solid weekend, followed by an important test in Estoril where we felt we made another small step forward. Here, at a track that is normally one of the hardest for us, we saw the benefits of all this hard work. It’s true that this weekend was affected by changing conditions, but we were strong in wet, damp, and dry conditions, so we can be happy with that. We’re still not ready to fight for the win, but compared to the start of the season, we’ve made a good step. Yesterday, in Race 1, we made the perfect tyre choice, and if the rain hadn’t come, I think we had a good chance to fight near the podium or even for it. Today, in Race 2, we made a great start, lying in fourth and third place for a few laps until defending that position became impossible. I tried to stick with the group, but I completely wore out the rear tyre, especially on the right side, which was completely gone in the last few laps. I held onto the top six until the last lap when I lost the battle and closed eighth. All in all, a very good weekend. We’ll take all the positives and now look forward to the upcoming two-day test at Aragón, where we’ll see if we can make another step forward.”

"Overall, I’m really happy because this morning in the sprint, I started basically last and still managed to finish P7. I even had a chance to fight for the top five, if not for a clash with Van der Mark along the way. Anyway, the goal of improving my grid position for the main race was achieved, and Xavi was right there too, so having two Hondas in the top seven was really cool. This afternoon, I was expecting a bit more, but I struggled a lot with my right arm—I’ve been dealing with this issue all weekend, to be honest, and today it was especially difficult to manage. It meant I made a few mistakes, lost some positions on track, and then I received a penalty that moved me back to tenth after the flag. Not that it changed much, though. The positive is that both Hondas were fighting close to the front, which shows we’ve taken a step forward. Let’s see if we can keep this momentum and hopefully build on it. But, yes, we’re happy today.”