Mir's Honda MotoGP situation "changed a lot" as he inherits Marquez's crew

Marquez has left the Honda team with which he spent his entire MotoGP career to ride a Ducati for the Gresini squad this season.

The eight-time world champion moved to the Italian team without his crew chief Santi Hernandez, who moved up to MotoGP with Marquez when the Spaniard jumped up from Moto2.

Despite the tremendous bond between Marquez and Hernandez, and the success they enjoyed - six MotoGP titles and one in Moto2 - the rider was unable to take the engineer with him to Gresini, as Ducati asked Marquez to commit for two years when he only wanted to do so for one (2024).

With Marquez's exit, everything looked set for Hernandez and his crew to oversee the arrival of Luca Marini, Marquez's replacement at Honda.

The Italian explicitly asked to work on Hernandez's side of the garage, a circumstance which would have meant that Mir would have remained with his previous crew chief Giacomo Guidotti and his team.

However, Mir requested on the weekend of the final race of last season in Valencia that Honda should give him the team that had always been linked to Marquez.

The fact that his contract expires at the end of 2024 prompted his decision to push for the crew change.