Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Joan Mir scored his best MotoGP™ result of the season at the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya, a P6 on Sunday was the second top ten of his maiden premier class season after claiming P8 in Qatar.
It hasn’t been the smoothest of transitions for the 2017 Moto3™ World Champion, with DNFs in Argentina and Spain coming either side of a race ruined by a jump start in America. A P16 at the French GP wouldn’t have been the result Mir would have wanted but points at Mugello and now a great ride to P6 in Barcelona shows that the results are starting to come for one of MotoGP™’s brightest prospects.
“Yes it was a difficult race because the temperature was so high,” said Mir, who was in touch with the podium battle throughout the race, with the Spaniard eventually just over two seconds from third place Danilo Petrucci (Mission Winnow Ducati).
“And yes, I tried to save the tyre a lot of the first laps to manage really well, and I’m happy about this,” continued the 21-year-old, who was only seven seconds off race winner Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) and 0.2 off Pramac Racing’s Jack Miller in Barcelona.
“I hope to continue on this line, to finish races because this is what makes you stronger, this is what I miss. I’m happy because this was the second normal race for me, the first normal one was in Qatar and the second was here. Looks like the results are coming, I’m so happy for the team and me. Let’s continue improving in the next races.”
Assen is next up, with Mir having a best finish of P5 in the Netherlands. That came in the Moto2™ race last season and a repeat in 2019 would be more than satisfactory for the Suzuki man.