The 2020 MotoGP World Championship is the year of the new kid on the block, with three first-time winners and a title challenger who took his first MotoGP podium just last month.
Joan Mir’s outstanding performances in the last four races – two seconds, a third and a fourth – mark him as the only rider with real consistency, making him the current troubled title favorites this season, especially given that Suzuki has done so has marked the Red Bull Ring and Misano as its shortened championship bogey routes
Watching me and his Suzuki GSX-RR on a racetrack reminds me of something – 250 GP bikes.
In my opinion, the last decade of 250 GPs has produced the best racing bikes man knows. These great two-stroke twins had 100 horsepower and weighed 100 pounds. So they were perfectly balanced and allowed riders to do things they wouldn’t dare to do on other motorcycles.
On some racetracks, the 250s approached the fastest 500 times just because they could get into and through corners so much faster than the doubly powerful 500s: rapier blades against battle axes.
It looks to me like he’s driving a 250 when he’s on the GSX-RR, not a four-stroke engine with 280 hp and 160 kilos. He seems to be sitting in the bike, not on top of it, and he attacks corners with the speed and dedication that made 250s so special. He is razor sharp, especially when pulling into the corner where he makes easy meat to his rivals.
I’m not the only one who sees the GSX-RR as a kind of MotoGP 250. This is exactly what Aleix Espargaró thought when he rode his motorcycle for the first two seasons in 2015 and 2016.
“The chassis is amazing!” The Spaniard told me in 2016. “It’s like a 250cc: You can go as fast as you want, in a curve and the bike keeps turning more and more. You can turn where you want with it, you can brake very late and you can drive very aggressively. “
KTM rider Pol Espargaró, whom Mir overtook in the closing stages of the race on Sunday, is also impressed with the Suzuki, which is so driver-friendly that he can constantly flirt with the limit – a big advantage over the racetrack.
“If I ride behind this bike – f ** k! – It’s amazing how many mistakes these guys can make and still get back online and still play with the bike. It’s really hard for a V4 – you make a mistake and suffer for the next two corners. “
World championship leader Andrea Dovizioso sees the GSX-RR as the opposite of his Ducati Desmosedici.
“The bike is so balanced,” said the Italian in Misano. “From the outside it looks like it’s a little easier to stay consistent throughout the race compared to the other bikes. So at the end of the race they are very fast because they consume the tire a little less so that they can maintain their speed. And I’m sure I have a very great talent. “
Me with crew chief Frankie Carchedi
Suzuki
Since 2015, Suzuki has maintained the confidence to create a finely balanced, driver-friendly in-line quad that has what it takes to beat the fire-breathing V4s and uses superior cornering performance to overcome superior straight-line performance.
Mir’s drive on Sunday was spectacular. He started in the fourth row and spent the first few laps cutting his way through the pack. Halfway through the race he was fifth, 7.1 seconds behind the race director. In the end he was second, 2.4 seconds behind the leader. So if he hadn’t lost so much time in the early stages, he would have had something for Maverick Viñales and Pecco Bagnaia.
He had it all: speed, commitment, consistency and that razor-sharp blade to attack other drivers.
In other words, all he has to do is improve his qualifying speed.
Last month Mir qualified in the second and first rows at the Red Bull Ring and was in the top group in both races. And he’s confident that he can get closer to the starting grid this weekend in Barcelona.
The only problem that Mir and his GSX-RR have is too much rear grip, which is of course worst in qualifying, with new tires. Too much rear grip creates an imbalance in traction at the front, making it difficult to get in and out of corners.