‘Mir is that wonderful thing in motorcycle racing – the Jekyll and Hyde type’
Joan Mir shocked the racing world last year when he won the Motogp title at only his second attempt. But he did so in the absence of Motogp king Marc Marquez, so was his 2020 success a mirage, or can he win again in 2021?
Reigning Motogp king Joan Mir goes into 2021 busting for a fight with Marc Marquez, the man whose crown he stole. Last season Mir came out of nowhere to win biking’s biggest gong while his fellow Spaniard languished at home, nursing a broken arm.
Now Mir and millions of Motogp fans can’t wait to see the pair go head-to-head for the first time. Only one problem – we don’t know when that will happen, because Marquez is still in rehab.
When Mir wrapped up the 2020 championship some people said his success was of little value because Marquez hadn’t been around to defend the title he had won six times in the previous seven years. This is pure bunkum – there’s rarely been a grand prix season in which at least one of the contenders hasn’t got hurt, because that’s what happens in motorcycle racing.
A showdown between Mir and Marquez would certainly be special, because they’re so different. It would be Marquez the Merciless against Mir the boy next door. Mir is likeable, chatty, with no apparent vices. He’s just an ordinary kid, on the outside at least, which makes him different to his immediate predecessors: rock star Valentino Rossi, prima donna Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner the man with a chip on each shoulder, and Marquez the man who burns with determination. ‘Joan is young, really fun and chilled – he’s not a big-timer,’ says his British crew chief Frankie Carchedi, who worked in BSB and World Superbike teams before moving to Motogp in 2013, first with the Apar team, then with Suzuki. ‘So you don’t want Joan to change as a person.’ Mir is that wonderful thing in motorcycle racing – the Jekyll and Hyde type – the kid who seems so meek and mild, until he climbs aboard a racing motorcycle and clicks his visor firmly shut. When he’s on the bike you can see he comes alight, he’s on fire. He has a sublime, all-attack style: hanging right off but tucked right in, eyes firmly on the prize. Which just makes you want to see him meet Marquez in battle all the more. So what does Mir think of a Mir versus Marquez showdown? He certainly doesn’t say he will kick Marquez’s arse, because that’s not the kind of thing racers say anymore. Motogp definitely isn’t Days of Thunder.
‘The thing with Marc is he’s strong everywhere – the package of Marc and Honda is super, super competitive,’ says Mir. ‘His strongest points are pole position and the first laps of the race, when he can be quicker than me, while I’m able to do really good laps at the end of races. For sure it will be an interesting fight! ‘Our styles are a bit different, maybe because the bikes we ride are so different. With the Honda you can be really aggressive entering the corners, but if you do that with the Suzuki you lose the line, so you need to be a bit calmer on entry. The character of the Suzuki is so smooth.’ V4 Motogp bikes like Honda’s
RC213V and Ducati’s Desmosedici use stop-and-go cornering lines, to maximise their horsepower advantage exiting the turns, whereas the inline-four Suzuki GSX-RR and Yamaha YZR-M1 make their performance via lots of cornering speed.
‘When we are fighting with the faster bikes we need to open our lines a bit more, so we can carry a lot more speed through the corner,’ adds the 23-year-old from Mallorca. ‘If we stop too much, then we lose two tenths, but if we go through the corner with a lot of speed then we lose less on the straight.’
Marquez – Motogp champion in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 – was one of the very few people who thought Mir would be in the championship hunt last year.
‘Marc is a very, very clever guy and a very clever rider,’ says Carchedi. ‘He’s so switched on that every time Joan went out on track during last year’s final preseason tests Marc was there with him, checking him out. Marc knew Joan was the kid to watch.
‘In some ways they ride in quite a similar way. One of the exceptional things Joan does is how he manages the front and rear brakes at the same time. He’s one of those riders who can use only 70 or 75% brake pressure [which keeps the bike more balanced] and still stop the bike quicker than other guys who use lots more brake. That’s an art that still baffles engineers!’
Mir has many qualities: mountains of riding talent, coolness under fire, humility and a keenness to work very hard.
His composure last autumn, while on the cusp of winning the Motogp, was something remarkable for one so new to racing for the biggest prize of them all.
‘I’m a hyperactive guy, I can’t sit still for long,’ he says. ‘But when I do my therapy – training and riding – then I’m relaxed!’
Mir’s humility may not entirely be what it seems: most top riders like to appear humble, if only to prevent rivals from wanting to beat them anymore than they already do. Again, it’s the opposite of that Days of Thunder bullshit.
‘You can’t do this sport and be humble inside, because you always think you’re better than the rest,’ he explains. ‘But on the other hand if you’re not humble you won’t work so hard because you’ll already think you can beat the other guys.’ Work is a big thing for Mir. After all, every Motogp champion has to
‘Mir is that wonderful thing in motorcycle racing – the Jekyll and Hyde type’
work harder than the last one because that’s the only way to succeed. That’s why 21st century pro-racing is such an arduous gig – a million air miles away from Barry Sheene’s jet-set glory days of champagne, cigarettes and nightclubs.
Mir trains eight hours a day, five and a half days a week: gym work in the morning, motorcycle riding in the afternoon, plus physiotherapy, massages and stretching exercises, to make him more malleable, so he’s less likely to get hurt when – not if – he crashes.
No surprise that he expects the same dedication from the people around him.
‘I’ve never known anyone demand as much from his people as Nicky [Hayden], but Joan is like that – he makes you take your game to another level,’ adds Carchedi, who worked with former Motogp champ Hayden in 2013. ‘Nicky wanted comparisons with all the other riders after every session – we’d print out booklets of data and information for him. Even when he was at home we’d email him data to look at. Joan is similar. We also send him info he can use to improve his riding when he’s doing motocross or supermotard training – things like looking after the tyres or turning the bike from the rear.’
Physical trainer Tomas Comas, who has worked with Mir since he was 13, has spent a lot of time instilling the youngster with a strong work ethic. Comas is also Mir’s right-hand man, making sure his every need is fulfilled, whether he’s training, travelling or at the track. Mir also employs a manager, Paco Sanchez, and a mechanic, Juan Garcia, who works on his training bikes, at home in Andorra.
This is a normal staff line-up for top Motogp riders – they hire staff so they don’t have to think about anything else but chiselling hundredths and thousandths from their lap times. When they want lunch, someone puts their lunch in front of them. When they’re sat on the grid and need their helmet, someone hands them their helmet. When they need to get on the plane home, someone gives them their tickets, or calls up the private jet. It’s Jeeves and Wooster do Motogp.
‘21st century pro-racing is a million air miles away from Barry Sheene’s jet-set glory days of champagne, cigarettes and nightclubs’
‘Motogp isn’t an easy world and you need the right people with their minds in the right place to work here,’ says Mir, who seems much wiser than his 23 summers. ‘I’m not a difficult guy but I’m a superperfectionist, so I want people who also work in a perfect way.’
Mir started racing later than most of the current Motogp grid. Unusually his parents aren’t into bikes (his dad owns a skate and surf shop in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, while mum works in the fashion industry) so the spark was only lit when he watched cousin and former 125 GP rider Joan Perello training.
When Mir’s parents realised their son has talent they enrolled him in the racing school run by Chicho Lorenzo, father of fellow Mallorcan Jorge Lorenzo, Motogp king in 2010, 2012 and 2015.
Lorenzo’s dad runs racing schools throughout Spain and Latin America, helping kids go faster by using a disciplined, scientific programme of repetitive riding exercises that configure mind and muscle memory. He even uses methods employed by Israeli secret service Mossad to improve performance in high-stress situations.
It’s radical stuff, for a sport. Lorenzo senior reckons Mir is the most talented rider he’s ever worked with.
After Lorenzo’s racing school Mir rampaged through various minibike championships, entering the Motogp paddock in 2013, contesting the Red Bull Rookies series. He made his GP debut at the 2015 Australian GP, battling for the podium in his first race with Motogp’s Moto3 maniacs.
That performance got him a full-time Moto3 ride in 2016, when he scored his first grand prix victory. The following year he dominated Moto3 like no one before or since. He won more than half the races – unheard of in bike racing’s most harum-scarum championship – and booked himself a place on the 2018 Moto2 grid.
Mir was immediately on the pace in the intermediate class, segueing seamlessly from a skinny-tyre 100 kilo Moto3 bike to a fat-tyre 150 kilo Moto2 bike.
His Moto3 crew chief, Pete Benson, another former Hayden crew chief who guided the American to the 2006 Motogp title, was impressed like the rest.
‘Joan is hugely talented,’ says Benson. ‘He is physical with the bike and muscles it around, using his body a lot. He learned quickly that Moto2 isn’t all about who can brake latest like in Moto3 – it’s about preparing the corner to get the power down as early as possible.’
All of a sudden Ducati, Honda, KTM and Suzuki were chasing Mir for his signature on a Motogp contract.
Mir chose Suzuki. He knew the GSX-RR is a rider-friendly machine and he liked the factory’s philosophy of signing young rookies, instead of established stars, then moulding them to fit the bike and the team. ‘Suzuki were great in my rookie season,’ Mir adds. ‘They said, don’t worry about the result, just get used to the races, bike and rivals.’ During 2019 Mir made steady progress, avoiding that potentially catastrophic mistake of trying to run with a Motogp bike before you can walk. And yet halfway through the season he suffered a terrifying 170mph tumble, caused by a technical fault. The Brno accident was like a plane crash – Mir’s GSX-RR flew over the circuit perimeter fence and ended up in a tree. He spent a week in hospital and missed two races, so in fact 2020 was his first full season on a Motogp bike.
Mir scored his first Motogp podium last August, took his first premier-class win in November and secured the world title the very next weekend. Such meteoric progress makes him confident of mounting a vigorous title defence in 2021, with or without Marquez.
But if Marquez is fit to ride, can Mir really challenge him? Last season Mir stood on the podium at seven of 14 races, winning only one of them. In 2019 Marquez finished in the top two at 18 of 19 races, winning 11 of them.
‘I think our strongest points is that we have a lot of margin to improve,’ Mir answers. ‘I only start riding in grands prix five years ago, so I am still gaining experience. This season I want to start making pole positions and winning more races, but what I want more than anything else is to become a better rider – that’s my biggest goal.’
Mir versus Marquez could be the greatest Motogp showdown in half a decade, so long as Marquez’s arm gets better soon.
‘Mir versus Marquez could be the greatest Motogp showdown in half a decade’