The crisis of Joan Mir: “When I came to Honda I did not think that everything would be easy”

Engineers explain that assessing a specific situation where subjective factors occur is complicated, because they consider that what cannot be expressed in numbers is not reliable. “In situations like this, the best thing to do is to use statistics, which show you the trend,” one of them told me recently following the controversy generated by an allegedly over-aggressive World Cup driver Cup.

And it is this method that we used to diagnose the hard start during the Joan Mir. That things didn’t go well for him is something we all witness, but when his numbers are analyzed, they are ‘terrible’.

I write ‘terrible’ in quotes because I could have used something less radical like posh, worried, discouraging or some other synonym, but by ‘terrible’ he refers not only to Mir’s situation, but also the dynamics that are coming up before joining the ranks of Honda. Because Joan’s crisis began earlier, specifically with the announcement of Suzuki’s departure from GGPP a year ago. From there, he went through a lot.

The numbers

I always say that statistics is the most imperfect part of mathematics, but in the case of Joan Mir, it presents an indisputable situation; It doesn’t matter at what point they are checked.

His start to the season was very poor. In eight races held -four sprints and four full distance-, he crossed the finish line only twice, his best result being 11th place in Portugal. In the other six, he went to the ground five times, did not leave Argentina, injured.

After the Spanish GP last weekend, Mir led the falls ranking in three categories of the World Championship, including the ‘crazy’ Moto3. During the GP weekends he crashed eight times to the ground, crashing where the tests should be added. This is the same number of drops he suffered in all of 2021, or just three less than those suffered in the twenty GGPPs of 2022. Let’s remember that only four GGPPs are contested.

Looking to see the glass half full in it, these numbers show that the Mir is giving it everything to be competitive with a Honda looking for the competitiveness that was lost years ago. A dynamic in which, by the way, Pol Espargaró and Alex Márquez also went through. As Honda riders, they both suffered over twenty crashes per season while riding HRC bikes. Like those, in the case of Joan, his downfall does not occur in the fight for the top positions, not even for entering the top ten, but while riding in the back of the MotoGP. A complicated situation.

From far away

But it would not be fair to blame Honda exclusively for the crisis in which Joan Mir was plunged. The numbers again reveal another fact. Part of what’s happening now stems from the 2022 Spanish GP, where Suzuki announced its withdrawal from the GGPP starting in 2023.

If until that moment Joan’s season was acceptable -three sixths and a quarter-, after Suzuki’s announcement Mir’s performance dropped. The falls followed each other and while his teammate Rins starred in a spectacular championship final, he barely made it into the top ten.

Let the numbers speak again: in the last 22 MotoGP races, Mir has crossed the finish line only seven times, finished in the top ten only three times, none of them on the podium. The 2022 World Cup is over

15th, while he is now 20th in the provisional championship, behind Marc Márquez.

Like all statistics, Joan Mir’s numbers may be full of nuances, but no matter what, they reveal a very hard truth. Obviously we wanted to talk to Joan to have her point of view, but from her environment they answered us that they consider that this is not the time to talk too much. “Now it’s time to get to work and move this project forward, whatever it takes.”

Notches in trust

Mir did speak out during the last Spanish GP, admitting that the series of crashes in which he has sunk, intentionally or not, leave notches in the subconscious.

“Every drop goes to the CPU and in the long run it always affects you. It’s still not the case, but it’s true that every drop takes away confidence. You know when you go into the corner and lean a little to turn a little more…! boom!, on the ground. And then you think ‘And what am I going to do, because I need more speed in every corner but I can’t lean?’

I don’t think the front bike is critical, it’s just that our top speed is not good, the grip is not good and it makes you want to do everything on the entry, and you crash. Logically you have to improve your top speed a little bit, your grip a little bit, a little bit there and from here on out.

It’s a situation to take it easy, be patient, try to take small steps forward… It’s hard, it’s hard… When I got here I didn’t think it would be easy either, but obviously it’s one thing to say it and another to live it this …No, I’m not enjoying it.”

The failure of the test

The tests in Jerez after the GP are important to start making the small steps forward that Mir is asking for during the race weekend. Both Joan and his brand partners, Rins and Nakagami, were hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel with the many new parts that HRC sent to the test: But on Monday afternoon the disappointment was reflected in the statements of Pilot Sling.

Even Nakagami, always restrained in his criticism, called the tests disappointing. “It’s disappointing, yes. We tried a lot of things, but nothing was better than what we had, so in the end we went back to the bike we used in the GP.

Mir was less direct, but his speech revealed a difficult day in which he added a new fall. Specifically at turn #6, where he crashed twice over the weekend. The curve, with the strongest braking on the circuit.

“It was a rather chaotic day, because a series of things happened that made the day quite active. In the morning the plan was to test different fairings, aerodynamics things that I think there could be a lot of room for improvement on this bike. One of them seemed to help us with turning fast corners or getting rid of wheelie, which is pretty much what this wing is all about. It seems to have improved quite a bit the bike.

Then we went back to a slightly different chassis in the morning, which we tested in the pre-season, when you’re not pushing 100% as much as you are today. But I liked it more when we got back together and I feel better.

Then I crashed into something, so we were left without fairings, because there was only one of us. I was forced to go back to the standard fairing, which was a bit worse. In the afternoon, at the last minute, I tested the chassis I had tested

Bradl, with the bad luck that the bike stopped after a lap. I had to go back to the box and get another bike, the standard one.

But it gave me time to notice that it’s very different, that it’s a different chassis concept, that the bike has positive things, although I don’t want to rush it either. The bike is easier to ride, yes, but the point here is to be faster.

The exit

Looking at the statistics and listening to Joan’s words, the resulting picture of Mir’s present and future is not so rosy. He lost one of the virtues that led him to win the MotoGP World Championship, his tenacity. A stability that, at this time, is important to regain. For him but also for those who need to make their motorcycle competitive.

Worrying about getting out of the hole he was in left him nowhere to go. Understandably, yes, finding himself in positions that do not match his status, he wants to take bigger steps than his current legs allow him, but he is repeatedly brought to the ground in the early stages of the career. … This is the First thing to correct, priority number 1. If the bike that Honda is forcing you to ride now won’t allow you to finish higher than 15th, let it be. With the experience and data gained, he and his technicians can advance, but there is no advance without experience or data.

Joan Mir’s current situation calls for silence. Yes, this is a term that seems antagonistic in the spirit of racing, but it is that at this moment Joan, more than competing, needs to be fixed.