Honda HRC Castrol target big result at Portimão

Honda HRC Castrol returns to Europe for the penultimate race of 2025, with Marini and Mir aiming to convert their late-season momentum into big results at Portimão.

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Honda HRC Castrol are down to their final two Grands Prix of 2025, and there’s a sense that this team is arriving in Portugal with genuine momentum, belief, and finally, visible reward for all the months of development they’ve pushed through this year.

Portimão, the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, is a fitting stage for this late-season charge. The circuit’s violent elevation changes and its long, punishing final corner feeding into a 970-metre straight make it spectacular in every category but especially MotoGP. And it’s also one of the few tracks on the current calendar where Honda has never won a premier class race.

That’s the kind of drought a team like this loves to end.

Marini: chasing Top 10 and Honda bragging rights

Luca Marini comes into Round 21 only 18 points away from the top ten in the Championship and just six points behind Johann Zarco in the fight to be the top Honda. Since coming back from injury, he’s only finished outside the top ten twice, which alone shows how far Honda’s 2025 project has come.

His final two targets for the year are now clear: front-row qualifying consistency and the podium he has been circling for weeks. If he scores 14 more points across the final four races, he will have increased his 2024 points haul ten times in 2025. The trajectory is undeniable.

Mir: the best Honda form of his career

Joan Mir has arrived in Portugal off the back of two podiums in the last four races and arguably in the most confident form we’ve ever seen from him at Honda.

Portimão’s hard braking zones should help the Mir–RC213V combination shine. And while his previous Honda results here were 11th and 12th, those were from a Honda version far less developed than the one he is riding today. Portimão’s fast mid-corner flow also gives Honda valuable data as they simultaneously test and race — while already thinking about 2026.

Two weekends left then attention shifts to the future

Sunday’s 25-lap Portuguese GP goes green at 13:00 Local Time, and both riders have made their intentions very clear:

Marini wants to check off the last remaining “unfinished business” items from 2025.

Mir wants another podium before this season closes.

And Honda HRC Castrol want to prove, definitively, that their 2025 progress is not storyline fluff, but real competitive foundation.

One more European stage. Two more shots. The rollercoaster awaits.