2020 FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION
MIR MAKES HISTORY
It has been a season of new records for twenty-three-year-old Joan Mir (Suzuki) who became the first-ever former Moto3 champion to claim the FIM MotoGP World Championship and the first rider to win it for Suzuki since 2000 when Kenny Roberts Jnr took the title.
In doing so he permanently etched his name into the history books and dethroned his Spanish compatriot Marc Márquez who crashed out of the opening round in Spain and was unable to race for the remainder of the season.
Mir has grown up in the public eye as he graduated through the MotoGP ranks. Starting in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup in 2013, he became a regular on the podium before his first full season in the Moto3 Junior World Championship in 2015. The following year he moved up to the full Moto3 class where, in 2017, he raced to his first World title.
After impressing in Moto2 in 2018 Mir earned a ride in MotoGP for 2019 when, despite tasting the Tarmac a couple of times, he ended the season strongly with his best result a fifth at Australia’s Phillip Island.
Having shrugged off his rookie status, Mir was impressive in 2020 pre-season training, although he crashed out of two of the opening three rounds before finally finding his feet. Mir was leading the Styrian GP when it was red-flagged but came back strongly with a run of podiums – including a maiden victory at the Gran Premio de Europa – that carried him to the MotoGP title one round early at the Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana in mid-November.
2017 FIM MOTO3 WORLD CHAMPION
JOAN IS THE MIR-ACLE MAN!
Joan Mir (Honda) became the first rider ever to score more than eight wins in a single FIM Moto3 World Championship season as he stormed to the title in dominant fashion. A former FIM CEV Repsol Moto3 Junior World Championship rider in 2015, when he gave a sign of his great promise by standing on the podium at each of the races he finished, Mir was crowned Rookie of the Year at Grand Prix level in 2016 with fourth place overall and kicked off this campaign with a second career victory in the opening round at Losail. The 19-year-old would hold firm at the head of the standings throughout the remainder of a stunning campaign.
Backing up his victory in Qatar with the same result at round two in Argentina, Texas proved to be his worst result in the first half of the year when he came eighth, but Mir bounced back on home turf at Jerez to take third, only a tenth off the win, and was quickly back on the top step at Le Mans. He won again at the Catalan GP before stringing together wins at Sachsenring, Brno and Austria. After losing some ground to key rival Aron Canet (Honda) at Silverstone, he produced a calm ride to second in the rain at Misano and Aragon saw him back on top of the podium, setting him up with his first chance at the title at Motegi.
In torrential conditions, the tale took a twist as Romano Fenati (Honda) took the win and Mir failed to score, but at Phillip Island it was a different story, as the Majorcan took his ninth win of the year clinch the title with two rounds to spare.