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Joan Mir Interview, Part 2: "This Sport Is 50% Rider, 50% Bike"

Submitted by Akira Nishimura on

Joan Mir in the garage at Phillip Island, 2019

In part one of Akira Nishimura's interview with Joan Mir, the Ecstar Suzuki rider spoke about adapting to MotoGP, what he learned from his teammate Alex Rins, and where they need to improve for 2020. In the second half of the interview, Mir goes on to talk about his path into MotoGP, how much easier or harder it is to be a rookie on a Suzuki, compared to a Ducati or a Yamaha, and how long he will need to adapt.

Q: Looking back at your racing career, it is just your fourth year in the world championship. So, when you started your world championship career in 2016, did you imagine you would be a MotoGP rider in four years?

Joan Mir: In four years, no. This is impossible. I think that this is a record or something. We have to find this, because it’s so, so fast. One year in Moto3. Win first race in Moto3, podiums. Then second year in Moto3 world champion. Then first year in Moto2 podiums. Then first year in MotoGP. It’s unbelievable. It’s so fast, but in all my career, I was always competitive, always. Also in MotoGP. So, I’m happy to be here.

Obviously, I would like to do one year more in Moto2 and fight for the title, because it’s something that we were able to do, to have a title in Moto2. I didn’t have it, but because everything came like this, everything fell into place so I had the contract with Suzuki. Otherwise I needed to wait two more years if I wanted to go up to MotoGP. I said, the moment is now. I went up. At the end I’m happy to be here.

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Joan Mir Interview, Part 1: "The Most Difficult Thing Is The Electronics"

Submitted by Akira Nishimura on

Joan Mir on the Ecstar Suzuki GSX-RR at Sepang 2019

It was hard being a MotoGP rookie in 2019. It was probably the strongest rookie class we have seen in many years: Pecco Bagnaia and Joan Mir, two world champions; Miguel Oliveira, who has runner up in both Moto2 and Moto3; and Fabio Quartararo, the young man they changed the Moto3 entry rules for. Yet even these exceptionally talented youngsters faced probably the most talented MotoGP field in history.

Quartararo's meteoric success dominated the headlines, but it overshadowed some strong debuts by the other three. Ecstar Suzuki's Joan Mir, for example, crossed the line in eighth in his first ever MotoGP race, and went on to become a regular top eight rider. By the end of the season, he was challenging his more experienced teammate Alex Rins, and scoring his best result of the season at Phillip Island, finishing fifth in the group battling for the podium.

Before the Japanese round of MotoGP at Motegi, top Japanese journalist Akira Nishimura talked to Joan Mir about his first thirteen races – Mir was forced to miss two races due to the lung injury he suffered in the huge crash at the Brno test. The Suzuki rider spoke at length about his rookie season, about his rapid progression through the Grand Prix ranks, and about what he learned. He also talked to Nishimura-san about racing against his teammate, and how making your debut on a Suzuki compares to the Ducati and the Yamaha.

It was an insightful and long conversation, and so it has been split into two parts. Part two will be published tomorrow, but here is part one:

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Cormac Shoots Testing: Photos From The Valencia Post-Race MotoGP Test

Submitted by David Emmett on


This was the last ever Valencia test, for a lot of reasons. Riders and teams hate it. Photographers love it, for the light. Here's Dani Pedrosa in the setting sun


Valentino Rossi with a shiny new frame on his M1. Yamaha have changed the way they work, and the progress is starting to show

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YMR MD Lin Jarvis Interview: Part 2 - The Changes To Yamaha's Team Structure, And Developing The 2020 M1

Submitted by David Emmett on

The 2018 MotoGP season triggered a year of change for Yamaha. After two seasons of decline, major changes were needed to turn the project around, and start to challenge for the title again. Results during the 2019 season gave reason for hope, with more wins and more podiums than in 2018, and Yamahas running more consistently at the front.

In the first part of our monster interview, Lin Jarvis, Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing, went in depth into the changes Yamaha had made to their internal organization, and how they went about improving processes and communication to make the factory more competitive. In the second part, Jarvis talks about the changes inside the factory team, and what they are aimed at achieving.

Jarvis first discusses the changes made to Maverick Viñales' side of the garage for 2018, and how that helped Viñales become more competitive, especially in the second half of the season. He also talks about the changes to Valentino Rossi's side of the garage for 2020, and what effect he expects that will have for Rossi next season.

The interview also covers where Jarvis believes Yamaha went wrong in the past, and their failure to understand the spec electronics until they got outside help. The Yamaha Racing MD also discusses the process of developing the Yamaha M1 for the future, and what their objectives and expectations are for 2020 and beyond.

Q: All of this focus has been about the bike. It’s not been about the team. It’s about building a better bike?

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YMR MD Lin Jarvis Interview: How Yamaha Changed Its Organization To Become Competitive Again, Part 1

Submitted by David Emmett on

It has been a tough few years for Yamaha in MotoGP. Since the switch to spec electronic software and Michelin tires, Yamaha have struggled to be competitive. In the first half of the current decade, from 2010-2014, Yamaha won 34 races. Between 2015-2019, that total dropped to 24 race victories.

The decline has been impossible to ignore, but it took some time to both register and to turn the ship around. The situation reached its nadir at the Red Bull Ring in Austria last year, the factory Yamahas qualifying in 11th and 14th, Valentino Rossi the first Yamaha to finish, 14 seconds behind the winner, Jorge Lorenzo. That Saturday, MotoGP project leader Kouji Tsuya stood up in front of the media and apologized for the factory team's poor qualifying, an unheard of move by a Japanese factory.

The 2018 season proved to be a catalyst. A string of underwhelming results, and little progress with the bike throughout the season prompted Yamaha to undertake a major shakeup behind the scenes. Personnel were replaced – Tsuya stood down as project leader, and was replaced by Takahiro Sumi – but the whole operation was examined and reorganized.

The objective was to get everyone inside Yamaha talking to each other again, to create open channels of communication between the race teams, the test teams, and the factory. To share information and ideas between groups, rather than retreating defensively behind departmental walls and shifting the blame onto others. It is one reason Yamaha has streamlined its MotoGP test team, to improve communication between the test team and the factory, and dispose of the different working methods between the European and Japanese test teams.

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Jerez November Monday Test Notes: Yamaha, Honda, Ducati, Suzuki, KTM

Submitted by David Emmett on

If Valencia is an important test, the Jerez test is even more significant. At Valencia, the riders are tired, and the teams know that they cannot burden them too much. The Valencia circuit is also not well suited to test duties, too tight and contorted to give the new bikes a proper workout.

At Jerez, after a few days off to relax and absorb the lessons of Valencia, the teams and riders are back on the track again. The test program for most factories looks to be bigger and more comprehensive than at Valencia.

Maverick Viñales finished the day as fastest, quick and comfortable on the new 2020 prototype of the Yamaha M1. That Viñales had a clear advantage over the rest of the field is plain, but the gaps on the timesheet do not represent the real relative strengths between the riders. A mixture of drizzle and red flags caused by crashes meant that anyone going out on fresh soft rubber was likely to have their attempt at chasing a time stymied by conditions, or forced back into the pits due to a red flag. The teams got plenty of work done, but events conspired to prevent the usual battle of egos which ends each day at the test.

Yamaha: Frame and engine

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Gordon Ritchie WorldSBK Blog: Tyred And Commotional

Submitted by Gordon Ritchie on

As one more championship in WorldSBK has now run its enormously unexpected final course, the off-season gives us time for both reflection and plotting a path forward.

OK, that’s the reflection over, what about 2020 and beyond?

The WorldSBK series does not quite restart its new season preparations just two days after the old season, as it does in MotoGP. In those terms it took a bit over two weeks to get WorldSBK bedded in again, but most teams are already getting into 2020 mode after two days of tests at Motorland Aragon.

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Cormac Shoots Valencia: Great Images From The Grand Finale

Submitted by David Emmett on


There is a corner of every racetrack around the world that is forever Lorenzo's Land. Farewell to one of the all-time greats


Fire in the hole. Ducati got the Valencia Grand Prix off to a bad start, Michele Pirro's GP19 catching fire, and two other bikes throwing out smoke

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Valencia MotoGP Sunday Subscriber Notes: The Dangers Of Racing, And The Season In Miniature

Submitted by David Emmett on

In these subscriber notes:

  • The dangers of motorcycle racing
  • Marc Márquez' remarkable season
  • Andrea Dovizioso's remarkable season
  • Jack Miller rides again
  • Why Danilo Petrucci is staying in factory Ducati
  • What riders think of Johann Zarco
  • Yamahas lacking grip, with one exception
  • Joan Mir on why being a rookie at Suzuki is harder than on a Yamaha

The last race of 2019 was a demonstration of just how dangerous motorcycle racing can be (although footage from the crashes at the Macau Grand Prix puts that into some perspective). The cold, the wind, and to be frank, allowing a rider who should have been black flagged for spewing liquids all over the track on three separate occasions this week to start a race created a host of situations which could have turned out really badly. But we got lucky.

Let's start with Aron Canet. The Moto3 rider had white smoke leaking from his Sterilgarda KTM during FP1 on Friday. He had white smoke leaking from his bike on the sighting lap before the race, which caused him and then Ayumu Sasaki to crash at Turn 6, and the race to be delayed. Despite the problem with Canet's KTM, the Spaniard was allowed to start the race, and more white smoke emerged from the bike, the KTM containing a seemingly endless supply.

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