Sylvain Guintoli loves one-win MotoGP rider has his ‘smile’ back after what he saw at the Qatar Grand Prix

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Jorge Martin has earned most of the headlines with his return from injury at the Grand Prix of Qatar, but the Aprilia star was not the only rider to attract Sylvain Guintoli’s eye.

The 2024 riders’ champion had to skip the first three rounds of the 2025 MotoGP season as Martin recovered from complex fractures on his left hand. After breaking his right hand and left foot at the Sepang Test, Martin highsided on a Supermoto and required further surgery.

But Aprilia, finally, have their new recruit on an RS-GP25 at a track this weekend. Martin was only the 20th-fastest rider in FP1 and practice, though. Ducati ace Marc Marquez and Franco Morbidelli of VR46 topped the two timesheets with Martin 1.824s plus 1.568s off their pace.

Sylvain Guintoli loves seeing Joan Mir ‘smile’ again after his ‘very difficult’ few years at Honda

But it was not only Martin, Marquez and Morbidelli who took Guintoli’s attention on Friday at the Qatar GP. The 2014 World Superbikes champion also vocalised his joy at seeing Joan Mir have a ‘smile’ on the 27-year-old’s face again following a few ‘very difficult’ years at Honda.

Guintoli feels Mir can now ‘sense the potential’ the RC213V has after a solid start to the year despite him scoring just 10 points to date. LCR rookie Somkiat Chantra is the sole rider in the Honda stable with fewer points with zero, as Johann Zarco has 25 and Luca Marini has 20.

Mir secured the factory Honda rider’s points with P9 in the Buriram Sprint, P8 in the Termas Sprint and P9 in the Argentina Grand Prix. But Giuntoli feels Mir’s confidence in practice for the Qatar GP showed he knows he can now regularly secure big points with the Honda bike.

Guintoli told TNT Sports 2 (11/04, 18:12): “Not scoring many points but he’s got the speed. A couple of mistakes. I mean, he is pushing the bike. He can sense that the potential is much better this year.

“The smile is back on his face because as a rider he’s had a couple of very difficult years. But now that the package is getting much better, he can enjoy himself. It’s completely different motivation when you know you can be [in the] top 10 maybe top five if you get a great race.

“When you go into a weekend knowing that you’ve got the worst package on the grid and you are going to be struggling, last year he was crashing out of last place. He was pushing and still crashing. This year, he’s competitive.

“You can see he’s just much happier with that bike this year. It’s turning better, it’s giving him more feedback [and] you can see the bike moving around. It’s great to see these guys [Mir and Marini] enjoying riding again.”

Joan Mir’s results on paper disguise his strong start to the 2025 MotoGP season

Mir joined Honda after Suzuki pulled the plug on the brand’s MotoGP project at the end of the 2022 season. But the 2020 MotoGP champion’s switch to Honda did not pay off during 2023 or 2024, with Mir scoring 26 and 21 points and retiring from nine and 10 Grands Prix.

He may already have two retirements from three Grands Prix this season but Mir produced strong races in Thailand and America before crashing. The Palma native – who still only has one Grand Prix win – was running in P7 at Buriram and the top 10 at COTA before crashing.

What the Honda star showed through the first three rounds further saw Randy Mamola call Mir the ‘great surprise’ of the 2025 season. Yet he will want to turn that promise into bigger and better results as the season advances and as Mir’s confidence on the RC213V develops.