Joan Mir admitted he has to take “a lot of risk” in the opening two corners of a race due to Suzuki’s current poor qualifying form.
Mir has only qualified on the first two rows twice this season, with his season best of fourth for the Styrian Grand Prix nearly granting him a debut victory before a poorly-timed red flag ripped away his chances.
Despite Suzuki’s Saturday struggles Mir has racked up four rostrum results that have thrust him into title contention, the Spaniard currently just eight points down on championship leader Fabio Quartararo with six races remaining, primarily due to his GSX-RR’s penchant for looking after its tyres well over a race distance.
Mir has warned though that he and Suzuki “have to work on improving our qualifying performance” if they are to remain out of the danger zone of a potential incident at the start, a scenario that caught out former points leader Andrea Dovizioso just two bends into the Catalan GP after the Italian ran into the back of a baulked Johann Zarco and retired having started down in 17th.
“It was tough for sure because we always start on the third row and on the first lap you have to take a lot of risk, for sure at the moment its working out but there are times where if you start in that position riders hit you, a bit like with (Andrea) Dovizioso today,” said Mir.
“Therefore I try to avoid this scenario as much as I can, I tried to overtake a lot of riders in the first two corners and then when I was behind (Jack) Miller I tried to not lose much time as I know he’s always really strong at the start of the race, and then when I saw everyone’s tyre dropping I tried to make good speed and recover some positions.
“It was quite close the victory, today Fabio (Quartararo) did a super job and managed the tyre in a really good way and in the end he won.
“In the first laps for example if I was in front of Miller I wouldn’t have lost so much time, and for sure this would have made the difference to win today, but it is what is and we have to work on improving our qualifying performance, we are working on it.”
The 2017 Moto3 world champion went on to hail Suzuki’s bold rider development strategy that favours nurturing young riders from lower classes over hiring experienced campaigners.
Mir was brought into Suzuki following a mixed Moto2 season with Marc VDS that failed to yield a win, while team-mate Alex Rins won four races across two full intermediate class years to earn his bow with the organisation-having gone on to win two races so far on the GSX-RR.
The Spaniard reckons Suzuki is now bearing the fruit from its going-against-the-grain philosophy.
“They’ve done a great job because the philosophy of Suzuki is to take young riders and grow with them, and now we are starting to see the results,” added Mir.
“Both Alex (Rins)and myself and are really strong and doing a great job improving Suzuki’s level race by race and the results are really good.”
The Link LonkSeptember 29, 2020 at 05:08PM
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Mir: Dovizioso incident shows ‘risk’ of Suzuki’s mediocre qualifying performance - Motorsport Week
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