“Conditions were better today, for sure.” “Yeah, but today was also more hot than last year.” “OK, maybe a little bit faster today,” Miller interjected, kicking off the briefest of dialogues. “Jack was fighting for the win, and the pace was more or less the same, no?” said Francesco Bagnaia. The numbers Mir cited, coupled with his moribund tone, raised a few eyebrows and are worth looking into further.Ĭertainly, when informed of his rhetoric in the post-Valencian GP press conference, the factory Ducati duo sounded a bit sceptical. Jack less, of course, but the others even more! And it’s something that, it’s a huge step that they did, if you analyse well. But somehow they made some improvement to be 15 seconds faster in the race. “ I finished two seconds faster than that race. “And they finished the race in 41 minutes and I think 22 seconds, more or less.
“Then, the second race, with more information of the track, with more grip, because two weeks in a row on the same track, Morbidelli won, in front of Jack.
“When I won the race in 2020, on that race we were 25 seconds slower, I think, 20-25s. “It’s really curious if you look at the laptimes in this race, and if you compare the laptimes of this year compared to the other ones ,” Mir said. And, in elaborating on his concerns on Sunday, the 2020 champion put forward a few fascinating numbers. Suzuki is quite bullish about its incoming 2022 bike, yet this Ducati 1-2-3 seems to be bothering Mir more than Quartararo’s emergence ever did. But Mir doesn’t tend to be prone to overbearing pessimism, given that he sounded largely unfazed by Fabio Quartararo’s early-season charge and had remained reasonably positive until it became absolutely clear the title was slipping away. There’s nothing particularly fresh about a motorsport competitor talking up their rivals – it’s arguably the industry’s favourite hobby. Suzuki’s Joan Mir, who was best of the rest at Valencia, clearly did, sounding deeply affected by the sight of the Desmosedicis escaping into the distance ahead of him on the final Sunday of the 2021 season. Nov 16 : MotoGP Valencia: Goodbye Rossi and more Ducati dominance