Suzuki’s Mugello MotoGP weekend was consigned to a double zero in the space of one lap, the eighth of the race, as Alex Rins and Joan Mir both hit the deck.
But while Rins felt something good was salvageable from his run and raged at Takaaki Nakagami over their collision, for Mir the crash was merely a logical conclusion to an absolutely dreadful three days of competition.
“I knew that we couldn’t make 23 laps with the package that we had,” Mir said. “What happened was that I was behind [Jorge] Martin and another rider [Alex Marquez]and then I was a bit sucked in [by the slipstream] at the end of the [main] straight and I couldn’t stop well the bike, I was a bit off the line and lost the front of the bike.
“So… better like that, let’s say. Because … it’s not normal, the feeling that we had during all this weekend.”
Nothing went particularly right for Mir all weekend. He was slow in practice, never threatened for a Q2 spot in the dry conditions or when the track was dampened by rain, and didn’t come through with a customary Suzuki first-lap charge. At the time he went down, he had been running 16th – attrition would’ve maybe turned that into a handful of points, but no more.
“I don’t honestly know what’s happening,” he said. “I was not able to do simply the speed in the corner of last year, by far, if I was trying to do it I was not going into the corner.
“I do not know. Difficult to say something.
“We have to make a big step if we want to do something. Because to fight in those positions, I prefer to stay at home, honestly.”
The Spaniard expressed total confusion at the “unbelievable” fact the tire allocation was the same as in 2021 and yet the bike felt “completely different”.
“I cannot stop well the bike, then I miss the corner speed. I cannot ride as I want. And you know, I lose in all the long corners that normally is our strong point.”
Mir did one lap in the mid-1m47s in his short race, having spent basically the entirety of last year’s Italian GP in that very same laptime range.
“What is true is that, with a less competitive package that was last year’s package, I was really really fast in the race! I could make low-1m47s [laps] all the race. Super easy… well, not super easy, but you know.
“[This weekend] I have to ride like that [too hard] to be in those 1m47s, and this is not how I want it. You ride bad.
“Because it’s a consequence. Then you cannot flow. It’s difficult.”
I insist that the 2022 Suzuki is not that different from last year’s, yet the early-season words of Ducati rider Jack Miller – who wondered aloud whether the extra grunt from Suzuki’s new engine would compromise its tire management and fuel-saving – start to feel eerily precious. Not that Mir lacked fuel or rubber in Mugello, but he made it clear that something has changed that hasn’t been properly accounted for or countered.
“[For 2022 Suzuki] changed a couple of [major] things—one is probably the [ride-height adjustment] device, then the other thing is the engine. We have to start from that point,” Mir added.
“And then try to understand what is happening, and what the others made to improve with the device. I think it will be the key.
“In some tracks, it’s not that bad, [but] tracks that normally suit us well, for example Qatar, this year we struggled, strange. Then Portimao, what happened with the front tyre, strange. It means that something is not right.
“I think the set-up, the geometry of the bike, we have margin to improve, I’m sure.”
Asked by The Race whether the cloud of Suzuki’s impending withdrawal from MotoGP may have knocked the atmosphere – and therefore, the working process – off-balance within the team, Mir said: “I want to think that [the answer is] ‘no’.
“Because for sure we are living a difficult situation. But…we have a motivation to make it good. It’s not that everything is done and it’s the last race. We have a championship ahead. Let’s see.”
But the remaining races might only present an opportunity to go out on a high. Mir is 10th in the standings, trailing championship leader Quartararo by 66 points – a gap that MotoGP history suggests is basically unassailable, even before we get into the fact that the performance isn’t there right now.
“We are far. I said during all the season – we haven’t had the chance to show our potential this season,” Mir told MotoGP.com.
“This is the truth. We have a new package that we have to develop a bit more, to understand more, because what is happening isn’t normal.”
