Gresini like Suzuki: Joan Mir wants to rediscover the magic—his plan to bounce back and silence his critics

The Majorcan rider will end his adventure with Honda and begin another with Ducati at the Gresini team: in 2027 he wants to feel like he did in the Suzuki days again.

The past five years of Joan Mir in MotoGP have not been easy. In 2022 Suzuki’s announcement of leaving the category was a shock, given that shortly before he had been negotiating a contract renewal and was close to an agreement. He began crashing a lot, and he carried that into his subsequent move to Honda. The first two seasons with the RC213V were a complete nightmare; only in 2025 did we see improvements that allowed him to have a fairly consistent top-10 potential and to climb the podium twice.

But the crashes continued to be numerous, as they have been in 2026, a year in which he could have scored more than the 29 points he currently has in the overall standings, where he is actually the worst of the HRC riders. He is even behind Johann Zarco, who missed several grands prix due to injury and will only return at the next one in Aragon. Even though he has shown decent speed, he has made mistakes far too often and has not been able to reach the finish line. There are a full 57 points between him and his teammate Luca Marini, an enormous gap. Valentino Rossi’s brother isn’t faster than him, but he takes fewer risks and is more consistent.

The two-time world champion has received plenty of criticism for his numerous retirements and knows it’s his responsibility to reach the end of the GPs, even if he asserts that he has repeatedly shown speed and that he is in a tough situation: “People always look at my current position in the championship,” he said in an interview with Crash.net, “but if I hadn’t crashed in those races and had taken those points, I would be among the top five or six in the standings. But that’s not how you do it: you have to reach the finish. We can achieve these good results thanks to our speed. This is a responsibility I take on, because so far I’ve struggled a lot to manage it. I remember that back in the Suzuki days, or in the past, I didn’t feel like this because I knew I had the right package. I could manage the risk, but for me it’s very hard to come here knowing I don’t have the chance to make it”.

The Honda RC213V has its limits, and Mir has often tried to go beyond them to achieve results that were not within the potential of his technical package. This inevitably leads to crashing and throwing away points. He doesn’t like to settle, he’s ambitious and suffers when he can’t fight for important positions, but at the same time he should be more rational and able to accept reality. Pushing too far also carries the risk of getting seriously hurt.

In 2027 he will race with the BK8 Gresini team and ride a Ducati Desmosedici GP27 Factory. Having a competitive technical package is a priority, but there’s something more that convinced him to sign for Nadia Padovani’s squad: “What the team transmits to people,” explains the Spanish rider. “And that team feels like a real family. It’s similar to Suzuki: do you remember how people talked about it? Marc went there at the worst moment of his career, Alex the same.”

Alex and Marc Marquez were revitalized upon arriving in the Gresini garage, and he hopes to do the same, proving he is still a rider worthy of a championship like MotoGP. He won the 2020 title with Suzuki and has taken podiums with a Honda that’s going through difficult years. Mir believes his results deserve greater consideration and he’s very eager to relaunch himself by riding a Ducati in 2027: “People forget very quickly and see what they want to see. I’ll go where I’ll go next year because I want to prove something. But in MotoGP you never know, I don’t know how I’ll feel. If I feel good, it will be for me, not for the public. That’s the most important thing, to prove something to myself, probably nothing, but to start having fun again. I haven’t enjoyed racing for a long time and I want to get back to it.”

Joan’s mission is clear. Even if silencing the critics isn’t his priority—because his primary focus is achieving results for himself and for the team—he certainly wouldn’t mind making some people reconsider if, in 2027, he’s able to shine with the Desmosedici. It would be a sort of personal revenge.