Joan Mir revealed that a major problem with the electronics on his Suzuki GSX-RR forced him to retire from the Portuguese Grand Prix, ending his title winning campaign earlier than expected.
Mir suffered a milder issue with his electronics during Saturday’s qualifying session, and despite the problem being found and quickly eradicated he ran out of time to set a final competitive time in Q1 and thus was forced to start the 2020 season finale at the Algarve International Circuit from 20th.
The Spaniard made a lightning start to fly up to 12th by the end of the opening tour once the Portuguese GP got underway, though several mistakes in the early running dropped him back to his starting position once again.
He made his way back to 16th before he ran into terminal problems with the electronics, forcing him to pull into the pits and made an early exit from the contest after only ten laps.
Mir said following the race that his early bath was “a shame”, having admitted he had “high expectations” for a decent recovery following his blinding getaway.
“It was completely different (problem that caused retirement), at the beginning I was able to recover lots of positions, my feeling with the bike was good,” explained Mir.
“Then I had a moment with so riders and I touched with them, and then I started to lose the electronics of the bike as something wasn’t quite right and in the end I had to retire due to this problem.
“It was a shame because I didn’t want to finish the year in this way but this is racing and this kind of thing can happen.
“It’s been a great year, now I’m thinking about what shame it was that this race ended as the start was really good and my expectations were high.”
Mir was philosophical having taken into account his overall campaign though, with the newly crowned MotoGP world champion declaring that “nothing other than a win will be good for us” once the ’21 season gets underway with the Qatar GP at the Losail International Circuit in March.
“Overall the year was super positive, I’m really happy to get the title,” continued Mir.
“I’m looking forward to next year, I’ll try to work as hard as I can over the winter with training to be in good shape for next season, and then we’ll see.
“I’ll be starting as world champion so nothing other than a win will be good for us, but we will try to manage a good year.”
Mir’s non-score in the final race of the Covid-19 shortened ’20 season meant he ultimately won the world championship by 13 points ahead of Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli as a result of the Italian’s late season flourish, while his and Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins’ combined efforts netted the manufacturer the teams title too.
Suzuki also led the manufacturers standings jointly with Ducati heading to the season finale, though the Japanese marque’s horror day-which saw Rins finish only 15th-meant Ducati walked away with the prize after Pramac’s Jack Miller finished second, while Yamaha also jumped ahead with Morbidelli’s third place result.
