Honda rider Joan Mir has a theory for why he's taken over the mantle of MotoGP's unluckiest rider - after the latest race retirement inflicted on him by a rival, in this case Alex Marquez in the Czech Grand Prix.
Mir's high rate of DNFs at Honda has been well-documented and frequently commented upon, but as of late, it has increasingly begun to happen without any real culpability on his part.
This year, he broke his right hand after being crashed into at the start of the French Grand Prix, got fired off by Jack Miller in the Aragon Grand Prix sprint, was collected in an Ai Ogura lowside last time out at the Sachsenring and was taken down by Marquez after a season-high fifth on the grid.
An irate Mir remonstrated with Marquez for a prolonged period of time at the side of the track after the crash, but tried to limit the criticism he levied at the Gresini rider publicly, saying "everything what I will say at the end will be worse for me".
When asked by The Race whether he was in disbelief, hitting the deck, he said: "Yeah, for sure.
? @alexmarquez73 is OUT of contention
The incident with @JoanMirOfficial will be reviewed after the GP ?#CzechGP ?? pic.twitter.com/iZicXbs06p
"But I don't believe in bad luck, good luck, these things. I don't believe. I think that we are in a situation, that we are fighting against other bikes that go every straight 5kph, 10kph faster than us. And at the end, you arrive from the braking area every time with inferior [speed] than the others.
"So then if the guy that is behind you is a little bit more optimistic than he should be..."
Mir's thought trailed off before he compared the current underpowered Honda, for which a lack of power has been a central issue this year, with how things used to be on the inline-four Suzukis - bikes that weren't too competitive on the straight either, at least until Suzuki's final year in 2022.
"We [Hondas] brake in a good way because it's the area where I can recover the lack of acceleration and power that we have.
"I remember back in my Suzuki days what happened with also this situation. When you open the throttle, we see always that we lack a bit of power. So they always catch you. And then they think that they can overtake you on the braking area.
"I brake always strong and if they are optimistic, they release the brakes and something happens. And this is something that is happening in the last races, happened something similar today - and will happen in the future. It will happen again in the future if we don't make a step, if we stay with the same bike.
"We will have similar results if we fight with the others. That's the reality. We are inferior with that to the others and if we don't [change], every time that I try to something more, something happens. So hopefully we have a break."
Marquez, whose crash into Mir ended a very strong first half of the season on a particularly sour note, held up his hands and acknowledged fault.
"I was not trying to overtake him, just trying to see if that was an overtaking place," said Marquez.
"Not being really decided. And then at that point, more in the inside, I lost the front and I touched Mir and he crashed also. Experience for the future, it’s something that when we start in the back we need to be a little bit more patient.
"A shame and so sorry for the team because this weekend, for some reason it was not like always - so I lost a little bit of focus on some side and just I did mistakes."
The stewards agreed that Marquez was at fault, handing him a long-lap penalty for the next event.
Mir - who said he'd felt contact from Marquez in the corners preceding to the crash - was reluctant to be drawn on his post-crash discussion with Marquez at all.
Marquez said: "At that point you are hot, he was hot, nothing to say about that. I mean, it's not a conversation that is [lucid]. Just saying things with no sense.
"He was really agitated, me too, honestly speaking. That conversation didn't go in any point. It's just that.
"In the end I said sorry, honestly, because it's only thing that I can say."
