Five races into the 2020 MotoGP season, and eventual world champion Joan Mir had still to make an impact on the title race. The Suzuki rider lingered in ninth place on the table, 36 points from leader Fabio Quartararo. Twelve months later, he’s 31 points back from the Frenchman, who once again leads – but this year, it’s harder to see a path forward if he’s to defend the crown.
There’s no escaping that Mir’s start to 2020 was nothing short of disastrous. Twice a non-finisher, once thanks to his own mistake and once thanks to another rider’s, it looked after five rounds like he was just another one of many riders who would be fast on their day but unable to put together a title challenge.
However, looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that wasn’t quite the case – because while there results might not have been there, he was consistently fast at every track that MotoGP visited.
Let’s not forget that while he might not have been winning races, he was denied a chance to stand on the top of the podium for the very first time only by red flags at the Austrian Grand Prix – a track where the Suzuki GSX-RR has no business leading races, given the inline-four engine’s significant top-speed advantage.
And it didn’t take long after Austria until he emerged as a valid title contender, either, with the two races at the Red Bull Ring heralding the start of a run of six podiums in seven races and, eventually, the world championship at Valencia with a race still in hand.
So, on paper it’s hard to discount his title defence just yet. He’s closer to Quartararo than he was last year and, more importantly, there’s a lot more time to go this year thanks to a more regular season than 2020’s COVID-struck calendar. In theory there’s 14 races, not nine, remaining, and some of them are Suzuki territory, which was absent from last year’s schedule.
Mir and team-mate Alex Rins might have been unexpectedly fast in 2020 at venues like the Red Bull Ring or Spain’s Motorland Aragon – but you’ve got to think that they’re practically salivating at the prospect of unleashing a new and improved GSX-RR around Assen, Silvertsone and Phillip Island, where high-speed corners play to all the bike’s strengths.
Yet the calendar alone might not be enough to ensure that Mir is able to defend his crown just quite as easily as winning it seemed last year, because while the first races of last year were compromised by bad luck and mistakes, it’s been a case of lack of speed so far in 2021 that has determined Suzuki’s championship position.
Sure, Mir made it onto the podium at the Portuguese Grand Prix, a race where everything went wrong last year after the title was wrapped up, and solid points from fourth and seventh in Qatar to kick off the year is hard to compare to last season thanks to the absence of the Losail circuit from the ’20 calendar.
But fifth at Jerez, without ever really looking to challenge for the win at a track that should have been a Suzuki target, was a worrying sign, and a rather rookie post-crash error at Le Mans was a setback that he really didn’t need.
Part of that inconsistency seems to be the fault not of Mir or the Suzuki, though, but something that it will lay at the feet of spec tyre supplier Michelin, whose 2021 allocation has already caused some concern among rival manufacturers, mainly KTM.
In theory that should be less of an issue in coming weeks, as MotoGP heads to traditional circuits at traditional times of the year, bringing with it European sunshine and literal decades of experience in both how to build a tyre to suit the conditions and how to set up a bike to suit that rubber.
For what it’s worth, team-mate Rins has showed a serious turn of pace in the recent races, but he crashed while running second at Portimao and crashed while running second at Le Mans. In the Jerez race between those, he crashed while trying to pass Mir.
“We improved a lot the bike,” Rins said at Le Mans, sounding pretty despondent post-race. “I need to say sorry to the team, because this year is the year that I’m feeling more strong in the bike, I do whatever I want – except qualifying – but I did what I wanted here in Le Mans.
“In the dry conditions we were so fast since the beginning. We did a big improvement on the bike. Just we’re doing stupid mistakes.
“Today we did the impossible – I recovered 10 positions in the first laps. Then, a stupid crash, again. I don’t know.”
Rins is 57 points off the top now, so it might be already game over. But his pace could encourage the other side of the garage.
No one in the Mir camp is getting jittery just yet, as you would expect from the well-oiled machine that the Suzuki team is, and there is certainly plenty of time to turn things around.
Should it be in a similar situation going into the summer break, then perhaps it’s time for the squad to start panicking a little bit – but until then, the level-headed Mir won’t be losing his cool.
