Marco Bezzecchi
Joan Mir won the MotoGP championship in 2020 with Suzuki in his sophomore season in the premier class.
The 27-year-old joined the Japanese manufacturer in 2019 after spending one year in Moto2, Mir had won the Moto3 title in 2017 and looked to make an impact at Suzuki.
The Spaniard enjoyed consistent points finishes in his rookie season, achieving a best finish of fifth in Australia. However, he missed the races at Spielberg and Silverstone after suffering a pulmonary contusion at Bmo.
Mir finished the season 12th in the standings as the second-highest-placed rookie behind Fabio Quartararo. The following year, he would stay with Suzuki and win his first and only championship, beating Franco Morbidelli by 13 points.
Joan Mir found it ‘difficult to control’ his emotions during his rookie MotoGP season
A key part of Mir’s success in 2020 was his crew chief Frankie Carchedi. The Brit has had an established career in MotoGP and has since gone on to work with the likes of Fabio Di Giannantonio and was Marc Marquez’s crew chief in 2024 at Gresini.
Speaking on the Oxley Bom Podcast, Carchedi discussed working with Mir at Suzuki when Peter Bom highlighted how emotional the Spaniard was in 2019. He said the rider struggled to ‘control’ those emotions, which would have been difficult for the crew chief to handle.
“I’ve seen you on television a lot Frankie because you’ve been with good riders”, he said.
“And when I look back at how the riders came across when I watched them in the box beside you, it’s been quite different over [the years].
“Let’s take Joan Mir and Fabio Di Giannantonio. I remember especially thinking myself, you’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong.
“But Joan sometimes, even though when he was a rookie and very young, he seemed to be like he had so much emotions, almost difficult to control them, to believe you know better.
“And he was a rookie. There was so much emotion in that guy’s eyes and so on. Do you recognise any of it? Was it a little bit like that? Because he looked so on fire sometimes and when it didn’t go his way he got, first of all angry, and that must have been hard at times”.
The worrying thing for Joan Mir about Honda’s lap times in testing ahead of 2025
After his title win, Mir failed to defend his title as he finished third in 2021. Suzuki departed MotoGP at the end of 2022, prompting the Spaniard to join Honda.
Partnering with six-time MotoGP champion Marquez, Mir joined the team during their decline. In his two seasons with the manufacturer so far, he has scored just 47 points.
Honda were bottom of the Constructors’ Championship in 2024 with just 75 points. As a result, they will remain in the same concession class (D) for 2025 and will be able to test their 2025 bike during the shakedown session in Malaysia.
Mir and teammate Luca Marini got to test the new machine at the post-season test in Barcelona in November. They were recently joined by Aleix Espargaro – who retired from full-time competition at the end of 2024 to become Honda’s test rider – for a private test at Jerez.
Espargaro outpaced Mir and Marini at Jerez – an impressive feat for the Spaniard considering his lack of experience on the Honda but a bad sign for the team’s full-time riders.
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