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Joan Mir Interview: "We Crash A Lot Because We Are Extremely Fast On Corner Entry"

By David Emmett |

It has been a tough year for Joan Mir. The 2020 world champion joined the Repsol Honda squad with high hopes, after Suzuki had decided to pull out of MotoGP at the end of the 2022 season. Testing was promising, at least when compared to the other Hondas. At the Sepang test, he was a tenth behind his teammate, six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez. At the final test in Portimão, he was a tenth of a second faster than Marquez, and best Honda.

The fact that the Repsol Hondas were seven or eight tenths off the Ducatis at the head of the test was a concern, as was the fact that they were floating around just outside the top ten. There was hope, but 2023 was clearly going to be an uphill battle.

Mir could not have imagined just how tough it would be. In Argentina, the second round of the season, he crashed in the sprint race, forcing to miss the Sunday GP with dizziness and vertebra problems. At Mugello, he crash on Friday afternoon and broke a finger in his right hand, causing him to miss the Mugello-Sachsenring-Assen triple header. At Valencia, he crashed on Friday morning, suffering problems with his neck, and was ruled out of the rest of the weekend, only returning for the test.

Those were just the most serious crashes. Mir ended up with 24 crashes over the season, twice as many as his rookie season in 2019, and more than double the 11 from 2022. He ended the 2023 season in 22nd place, with just 26 points. A steep decline compared to his 15th place with 87 points in 2022, and a disaster when compared to 2021, when he finished third in the championship with 208 points.

On Thursday at Valencia, I spoke to the Mallorcan about his first year with the Repsol Honda Team. He talked about how hard the year had been mentally, the Honda RC213V's biggest weakness, and where it is still strong. And whether the change to the MotoGP schedule and the introduction of sprint races made adapting to what is regarded as the most difficult bike on the grid even harder.

Q: We know it's been a tough season in 2023, but what score would you give this year, out of 10?

Joan Mir: To myself? In terms of what? Because this is a good question. Because in terms of performance, in terms of how I manage mentally the situation, in terms of how I manage the situation mentally, I will give a 6 or 5. Not more. Not more.

In terms of performance, how I started and how I finished, we could see an improvement, we can see an improvement. And I will give an 8 or something like that. But yeah, I think that's quite fair.

Q: And in terms of your expectations from exactly a year ago?

JM: My expectations... Before, I made a prediction at the beginning of the season, in Portimão, and I said, I will make four podiums. I mean, it's honestly what I expected. Not more, but not probably much less.

I expected much more from the bike, at the beginning of the season. I expected much more from Honda. And I expected, much more from myself, from my dream. I expected much more in general. And for some reason - well, we know the reason that the potential was not there - and if everyone struggles, that's the point.

Q: It's easy to see because, nobody is good on this bike. Even Marc, who has been on the bike a long time, knows everything about it, even he is struggling...

JM: But I know that he's my reference in all the GPs, because first I'm a rookie with this bike. I have to learn a completely different style compared to the Suzuki. So I had to learn from that style. I had to learn about how this team works. I had to learn many things. And at the end of of the season, from Silverstone, then India, we made an step in terms of performance. That put me on a very similar level to Marc in terms of riding. In some qualifyings, I was in front. In other ones, he was in front. In the races, I was probably always coming from behind, and like in Qatar on Saturday, I'm not able to have the consistency of Marc, but sometimes I can have the speed.

Q: So what Marc is able to do is repeat really fast laps, but even Marc runs out of steam? He's OK in the sprint, but in the long race he just goes backwards?

Honda
Joan Mir
MotoGP
Valencia, Spain
CormacGP
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Comments

I find this piece interesting for some reason, can you shed a bit more light on it - anyone? Is Honda still of the opinion it knows better than its riders? Years ago I was mesmerized by the difference between the throttle and brake during the GP if they were comparing Rossi in the Yamaha and Stoner on the Ducati. Is that still the case then?

JM: I remember with with the Suzuki, you had a lot of throttle in the hand, a lot of torque in the hand. You were able to control a lot of the bike with the hand. With this one, you are not able to control with the hand. You just open full throttle and you will see what happens.

The electronics of the Honda have always been suspect. For some reason, they can't get the power delivery right. There are persistent rumors that Marc Marquez' 2020 crash at Jerez was a result of the electronics. Marquez was pushing the limits, but the electronics let go at the wrong time.

Honda changed their setup halfway through the season, after so many crashes. Power delivery had been very unpredictable, so they tamed the engine a lot. The electronics turned the throttle response into something resembling a twist-and-go scooter, or an underpowered automatic transmission car. You open the throttle and wait for the power to come in.

The one thing you will hear riders say again and again is that they want to "have the throttle in their hand". What they mean is being able to spin the rear predictably. But sometimes riders think the bike is capable of providing more power than the tire or conditions can handle safely, so engineers are always trying to find the balance, between allowing the rider to control the spin of the rear, and risking the rider spitting himself into low earth orbit.

This thread sparked a random thought: did Honda get their crankshaft/flywheel mass wrong again? Maybe not as bad as 2015 or whichever year Suzuki got it completely wrong, just enough to cost them a  tenth or two per lap when the current competition means a couple of hundredths is the difference between Q1 and Q2?

Honda wishes they were so lucky.

Casey Stoner was a fairly self conscious nervous personality as arrived in motorcycle racing. EXACTLY as all of us were at that age.

His gut internalized nervousness. Plenty of us have "nervous guts." Coporate farming practices leave undigestible grains. Stoner was a kid out there, stressed out. And his guts gave way. He felt it ALL. Sincerely wished in real time that I could do therapy w him. Which applies today...love these riders!

Jerez 2020, Assen, Mandalika (maybe a tad off), Sachsenring and on and on. Many crashes of a very similar nature for Marquez ever since Texas '19. Honda fixed the engine braking issue which was stated as the cause of Marcs only no score of the year. I'm scratching my head trying to remember before and after that point but my memory serves me (no doubt selectively) his worst high sides, mid turn. Not off throttle on the way in. Not spinning up the on the way out. Playing somewhere between and the yellow handle gets pulled. 

Honda basically hasn't made any developmental progress since 2016, so having high expectations for details like power delivery is basically unreasonable. The bike Mir rode this season was brand new not too long ago, and is bad enough that Honda has decided to completely scrap it and start from scratch for the second time since Marc's big crash. The situation is dire.

Heck, the developmental drought may go back further. I recall Honda making big changes in firing order early in Marc's tenure. IIRC in 2015 they switched the engine back to a screamer which was part of why Marc had so many crashes.

I admire Mir's hard work in what was clearly a very difficult season for him.  I follow him on social media and he basically picked himself up and dusted himself off week after week, with a positive attitude.  He highlighted what went well ('what we found') and soldiered on.  

I wish him a much better year in 2024, and know he will give 100%.  At the Valencia test, it seemed that some improvements had been made on the Honda - let's hope so!  Good luck, Joan!

Thank you for the interview, David.

Hi Faitbien,

As a huge Mir supporter, I love what you wrote. It’s so true in every way. Mir is such a class act, it’s hard to believe how little love he gets. And his career results are more than enough to justify anyone having ample respect for him.

I’m off to COTA in a few days, and I’m going to do my best to meet him and let him know I’m a big fan and wish him the best of luck. (I bought one of those overpriced VIP packages, so I think I’ll have a decent chance to meet him and other riders.)

Btw, I know I’m responding quite late to this article, but I only joined MM recently.

Doug 

Sometime I forget that Rins won in Austin on that bike. Like, WTF? How did he do that?!

I guess if he knew, or knew how to replicate it, then Maybe he'd still be at Honda. Maybe Marc would still be at Honda!

Because Rins crashed at Mugello (highside).

And then Marc crashed 5 times at the sackrace the following weekend. When Marc highsided out of the rest of the weekend, Taka was behind him and said:

“Honestly, before he had the crash I was behind him, I couldn’t see anything wrong with his riding... ...I was scared because we use the same bike. I had the same feeling that the corner was really tricky."

So did Marc tell them to revise the strategy after Germany or did someone in the team say, "Hold on, we're never going to fix this bike if it kills all the riders first!"

Rins also won at COTA because Bagnaia crashed out. He earned second on his own, but I don't think he was catching Pecco before the crash. But, to finish first you must first finish.

I only remembered this because I watched the COTA round in preparation for my glorious track day debut there last month.

Just my first time riding at COTA. My first track day ever was back in 2005, though I took a decade off and really just got back into them in the past couple of years. But, yeah, COTA was much more technical than I expected, even after watching every onboard video I could find.

Thanks for explaining.  Yeah, it’s too long for track days and it takes almost a whole day to get decent lap due to the diffident abilities of the riders and different types of bikes on the track and the time it takes to complete a lap. 

"5 Riders Trying To Keep Their Seats," just read an article. 4 of which were the obvious choices. They included MIR in their too!

Agree? Feel ok about it?

(Here no x2). Go Mir!

Have a ball next wknd UZWEEM, hope you get to meet riders. Thurs is usually their relatively talkative day "for that," their game face is on Fri-Sun. (Maybe try the Japanese tradition of bringing small fun and or tasty gifts to hand them? Even just a USA post card w encouragement and their # on it works, gets you a smile and a high five). Either way you are sure to SEE a ton in there by the garages.

Pop on and share observations or anecdotes w us tv'rs please and thanks? Fun to feel "in there" w you! 

Any other Mutterers at COTA? Is there a meet up this Round? 

:)

GO LAVENDER MARC! 

I did read that article and was disappointed, but not altogether surprised, to see Mir on the list.  In my opinion, he doesn't belong on the list.

The Suzuki shock hit him hard, and the move to Honda maybe hit him harder.  I do believe he is just turning the corner now (after an entire season of the Honda doing it's best to keep him from staying aboard and injuring him whenever possible), and I also believe Honda is making some progress.  I'd like to see him given an opportunity to show how good he is, and I think he is very good, now that the bike is marginallly more ridable.  

So, 'Go Mir!' for sure! He's smiling more this season and I know he has what it takes to be competitive.  Honda, if you are listening, sign him up for another two years - I believe it will be a good move. 

So, to answer your quesitons:

Agree? Nope!  Feel ok about it?  Not at all.