Joan Mir was pleasantly surprised by his British MotoGP race performance - until it ꦿcame toꦿ a premature end with an engine issue at the midway mark.

With the next Honda engine step not ready until Austria, in two weeks🐽, Mir knew he had to try and make the best of the present packa🧜ge.

That includes the revised𝐆 engine introduced in Barcelona, which Mir feels offers less outright performance than the stꦇandard version.

But in a case of ‘one step back to take two steps forward in future’ Mir - after switchℱing to the standard engines for Mugello - has joined team-mate Luca Marini in running the less powerful (revised) engine for the past three rounds.

LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami was the only Honda rider to open new engᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚines at Silverstone, which appeared similar to the current Repsol spec. His team-mate Zarco remained o🐷n the previous version.

All four Honda riders ar🧔e rumoured to be receiving ‘new configuration’ engines in Austria, based on the direction of the ⛄'Barcelona' engine spec.

Meanwhile, after losing out to Marini by 0.6s over 15th place in the Saturday Sprint, Mir credited set-up 𒅌changes for making him more comfortable in the Grand Prix.

The 2🔯020 world champion was holding 14th place, between Marini and Pramac Ducati's Franco Morbidelli - recovering from two long laps - when his bike shut down.

“A t🐈echnical problem,” said Mir, who was wearing a Randy Mamola replica helmet alongside Honda's retro 75th motorcycle grand prix anniversary livery.

“Lights on the dashboard and I lost power on the straight. S🌌o electric probably because we didn't have any oil on the bike.

“But honestlꦗy, I had the best feeling with the bike all🃏 weekend.

“I was able to be quite competitive. Get back good feelings. I was behind Luca. I was controlling the tyre management, which is important here, 🌌because I knew that Morbidelli was behind.

“When Morbidelli was going to overtake me and Luca, I was [going to] over൩take Luca and try to break away. But the lap that Morbidelliꦑ overtook, I had this problem.”

Honda, like Yamaha, can modify itsꦡ engine design during the season due to concessions.

“Personally, like I’ve said, wi🀅th this [current] engine configuration, you lose perf🍃ormance," Mir said.

"And we see that Taka also struggled a lot this weekend [with this engine], complaining about the things that I co🎉mplain [about] with this engine character.

“With the [standard 2024] engine, that for example Johann is using, that was for me t🐻he strongest package actually ꧅this year.

“But then we got a bit lost [with the set-up] because trying different [engine] configurations yo𒀰u think that you can improve here or th𓄧ere.

“At the end, you can make better races when you probably don'🦂t touch a lot of things on the bike.

“We tried to modify 100 times, the geometry or whatever, and it's ܫnot giving us this extra gr⭕ip or acceleration that we are missing.

“So it's better to try and fe✱el quite comfortable with the front, and try to have a good pace.

“We came a bit bacꦑk to the setup that I had at the beginning of the year and I was able to attack more the front and in the race, I was happy with my feelings.

“So probably from now ♎on, tꦗhat will be my base and I will not touch anything.

“I🎐 don't expect that I will have to change so much for the other engine [due to arrive in Austria].“

Asked if he likes being able to test different engine🤪s during the season, Mir smiled:

“No, it's not nice but also in our situation, it's good... I prefer to be testing engines than to have this 🧜one in the next race!”

Zarco remains the top Honda ri𓃲der, in 18th place in the world champi🌳onship, directly followed by Mir and Nakagami. 

Marini is 🦹23rd, with one point, after losing 15th place at Silverstone due to a post-race low tyre pressure penalty.