Joan Mir will miss this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix after Honda HRC Castrol said his doctors want him to focus on recovery and further medical checks. Takaaki Nakagami will take Mir’s place on the RC213V, according to the official MotoGP announcement and Honda HRC Castrol’s team statement.
The change affects the Austrian GP at Spielberg from September 18 to 20. Honda said Mir travelled to Barcelona after withdrawing from the San Marino Grand Prix for medical checks. Those checks found altered blood-work parameters that require further investigation, while the symptoms he experienced in Italy did not yet have a clear diagnosis. The official MotoGP calendar lists Spielberg as Round 15 of the 2026 season.
Honda is giving Mir time to complete the checks
Honda’s statement does not attach a confirmed return date to the withdrawal. It says Mir is targeting a return at the Japanese GP, but the immediate decision is to rest and undergo more tests. That distinction matters because the team has not identified a final cause for the symptoms in the announcement.
Mir pulled out of Sunday’s San Marino race after starting the weekend with Honda. The follow-up examinations in Barcelona changed the team’s plan for Spielberg, a circuit where Honda will now run a different rider pairing. The Austrian weekend therefore becomes a short-term health and line-up story rather than a performance verdict on Mir or his season.
The timing also follows a difficult San Marino weekend for several leading riders. Marc Márquez won the Grand Prix after Marco Bezzecchi crashed out of the lead, as we reported in our San Marino GP report. That result is useful background for the championship setting, but it does not change the medical reason Honda has given for Mir’s absence.
Nakagami gets a race weekend before his Motegi wildcard
Nakagami is not stepping into an entirely new programme. Honda identifies him as its development rider, and the team said he has just completed a test at Mugello. He was already scheduled to attend the post-race test at Spielberg on Monday, so the substitution adds the Grand Prix weekend to work that was already planned around Honda’s development effort.
Honda said Nakagami’s Austrian appearance will help him and HRC continue testing the 1,000cc machine. It also gives him preparation ahead of his wildcard at the Japanese GP, where he is due to ride on home territory. The team has therefore linked two separate commitments: an immediate replacement for Mir and a planned development role that continues at Motegi.
The move also arrives as the 2027 grid takes shape. Bettista’s coverage of the MotoGP rider market tracks the wider line-up changes, but Nakagami’s Austrian appearance is a 2026 sporting substitution rather than a new contract announcement.
For Mir, the next confirmed step is further assessment rather than a race result. Honda has said the aim is to return for Japan, subject to his health and the outcome of the ongoing checks. For Nakagami, the task begins on Friday in Spielberg, followed by the Monday test that was already on his schedule.
