On November 8, 2020, Joan Mir, who started from fifth position on the grid, claimed victory at the European Grand Prix , held at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia.
For the Mallorcan, that was his first victory in the queen class and the award for the perseverance of a season in which he was solidly regular, to the point of ending up becoming world champion a week later, on November 15, in that same circuit.
It took Suzuki 29 races to get his first victory in the premier class and everything seemed to indicate that, after achieving it, the following ones would come more regularly. However, the reality is that today it has been more than a year since he has returned to the top of the drawer.
“It’s hard for me, I’m not going to lie to you,” he acknowledged in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com last weekend at Portimao , where the Suzuki rider finished second and returned to the podium for the sixth time this year.
“I demand a lot of myself, you won’t always see me happy when I’m on the podium, I’m someone who likes to win and it’s costing me a lot”, explains Mir, who in addition to finishing second in the Styrian Grand Prix and the Algarve, was third in Portugal, Italy, Holland and Aragon this season.
Waiting for what may happen next weekend in Cheste, where he precisely achieved the victory that is on his record, Mir has accumulated six podiums this year in 17 races, while last season he managed to climb seven times in 14 great prizes.
“Last year was my second year (in MotoGP), I started to work, a victory came at the end of the season and they could have been more. But then you get to a point where you tell yourself that it’s the third season already and that you have to improve. I’m in that process, I’ve only been in the World Championship for a short time and I got to MotoGP very quickly, that means I still have room for improvement”, reflects the Mallorcan.
In his first year in the premier class (2019), Mir’s best finish was a fifth-place finish at the Australian Grand Prix , the third-to-last race of the course.
“It cost me a lot the first year, but the reality is that I only had four in the World Cup”, counting all the categories.
“Now I have six, I am very new and I have room (to improve). But we got to this year and it has not been, not even remotely, what I expected. Going a year without winning is hard to digest and I’m not having a good time at all”, acknowledged the 2020 MotoGP and 2017 Moto3 champion.
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