Suzuki’s fright leaves a MotoGP champion without a team for the season, but he is not excited. With his calm demeanor, he considers offers and analyzes his future, even beyond MotoGP.
“I didn’t suspect it at all. The news was hard, very ‘heavy’. First they told us and then the rest of the team in a meeting that we stayed for. it was in the workers,” says Joan Mir about the news that has shaken the MotoGP World Championship: Suzuki, his brand, lowers the blind. At the end of this season it will no longer exist and, for this reason, Mir is currently looking for accommodation for next year. The Japanese managers managed the decision in the worst of ways, without warning anyone -not even the team leaders-, with the renewal of Mir himself almost closed and despite this the 2020 MotoGP champion is not exalted. “If they decided so quickly it was for some big reason,” he justifies. A few weeks ago in Portimao he was also worried about a rival, Jack Millerwho had just thrown him to the ground: this is the character of Mir.
- He gives the feeling that he never breaks a plate.
- I also have character huh. I get angry if I can’t give 100% in the race, if we as a team haven’t done a good job. It annoyed me a lot, for example, last year in Brno when he threw me [Iker] Lecuonabecause the circumstances were different from the accident with Miller.
- In any case, in MotoGP his tone is valued little.
- Yes, but it’s normal. The fight sells more, is more morbid and gives more game than two pilots making peace.
- In that same sense, it has never been lavished on social networks, but it is shown less and less. Just four strictly professional things.
- It’s not something I planned, but it is. I highly value my time, my privacy, my family. Other pilots like to expose everything they do and gain more followers with it than with their results. Not me. I guess it’s also my character. Who follows me does it for what I do with the bike and that’s it.
- For a family type, with so many trips… Is it hard to have a place to call home?
- Yes, a lot, that’s why I value time at home. We travel a lot and this year more than ever. I was talking about it today with a mechanic: we have had six races and it seems that we have had half a season. Qatar, Indonesia, Argentina, the United States… we don’t stop. That’s why when a degree ends, what I want is to get home, leave the phone in a corner and go for a walk, to shop, to the movies. Make a normal life with mine.
- A few months ago he invested in a Tatel chain restaurant. Start thinking where to use the money earned?
- I’m interested, I’m interested. I really like to inform myself, I have made some real estate investment and I think it is important for my future. In my family they already did it like this: what was earned, was invested. I am clear that the sports career only lasts a few years and that in the end all the risk I take has to serve to live as I want when I retire.
- If we talk about money, are you worried about your future in MotoGP without Suzuki?
- I’m in the market, that’s the reality. Thank God I have offers. I was to sign [con Suzuki] and now my manager has a job. Logically I would like to have everything fixed as soon as possible.
- With what motivation to run this year knowing that the team is not going to continue?
- It is difficult to manage. In some way, the motivation is to finish as best as possible, to see if we can fight for the title. It could be that there is a downturn in the team, it would be normal, although I think we all want to finish this special project well.
- He has been claiming the value of his 2020 title for a long time, despite the few races due to covid and the absence of Marc MarquezBut… If that was your only MotoGP World Championship, would you end up satisfied with your career?
- No. Because I know I am capable of earning more and because it would be great to win in a normal year. But the 2020 World Cup has a lot of value for me. I understand the question, but it is a title that was won by intelligence, by regularity, by attacking when it had to be won. It was a very unusual year, but every time I think about it I give it more credit, not less.
- It was a World Cup that was won with only one victory, but with many podiums. Somehow, something hysterical. If it happens again they will say that you win ‘a lo Mir’.
- If it means winning consistently, that’s fine with me. When talking about my World Cup, things are valued, but it is never said that I won with a Suzuki, that I had not won for 20 years, for example. I dislike it because I am not given credit. I am 24 years old, at the moment I have two World Cups [gan en Moto3 en 2017] and I’m still fighting for more. I hope that in the future it will be valued differently.
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