Red Bull Ring, Spielberg, Steiermark, Austria, August 17, 2025 – The competition only got tighter on the second day in Spielberg, narrow margins separating Luca Marini and Joan Mir as they finished nose to tail in a chaotic Sprint race
Both sides of the garage finding more pace for a Sunday recovery.
Starting the day with sixth place in a productive Free Practice 2 session, Luca Marini was primed to attack Q1. With a plethora of race winners and World Champions in the session, it was as tight as ever and a margin of just 0.2s saw Marini finish third in Q1 – ahead of Jorge Martin but just missing a transfer spot. Having shown stronger pace over longer runs, the #10 knew he had more for the Sprint and steadily picked his way through a chaotic start to the race. Battling with Quartararo and his Honda HRC Castrol teammate for the latter half, Marini took 12th at the flag and edged out Mir of just a tenth.
It was another unfortunately dramatic Sprint for Joan Mir who found himself taking avoiding action as the lights went out, Bagnaia’s slow-starting machine drifting across the track and pushing him wide. Last on the exit of Turn 1, Mir showed off his superior pace to work his way forward and join Marini in the battle for 12th. Showing strong pace throughout his comeback, the result puts the #36 in good stead for the full-length Sunday race where he is aiming to capitalise on his tenth-place start.
28-laps of Austrian Grand Prix action are scheduled to start at 14:00 Local Time in Spielberg.
Sharing his thoughts after the sprint, Joan Mir said, “It was a really chaotic start and as a result, we had to take action to avoid making it more chaotic and trying to avoid what happened in the last four races. Then the race was about coming back and just trying to overtake as much as possible, which isn’t easy at this circuit as it’s probably one of the hardest to overtake on from the whole calendar. I was able to reach my teammate, maybe with more laps we could do more but with the situation at the start I am content with what we have done. It gives us something for Sunday.”
While Luca Marini said, “Everyone was super lucky at the start today, could have been much worse. It’s tough to overtake here, so losing the time at the start stopped our race. I was able to do some good laps and take the most from it, a positive to get some information for Sunday. I’ve been happy with how my lap time has progressed over the course of the weekend, so if we can start in a better way then we can show our true potential.”