Although Spanish rider Joan Mir hasn’t won a race since 2017, she is nearing the MotoGP world title as the championship moves into her 2020 final this weekend.
Before the Grand Prix of Teruel on Sunday, 23-year-old Mir has a wafer-thin lead of only six points over Frenchman Fabio Quartararo.
In this shortened season, however, the Suzuki driver proved his mastery of constancy with three second places and two thirds from the 10 races that were held.
In 2019 Mir drove 17 races, failed to make it onto the podium and finished 12th in the overall standings.
He remained victorious in Moto2 the previous season and left his final winning season as his Moto3 World Championship campaign in 2017.
Last weekend, Mir finished third in Aragon’s MotoGP, with Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins winning the race.
“It was really positive because we scored important points for the championship,” MotoGP told Mir after seeing Rins become the eighth different winner in 2020.
The two Suzukis were split from Alex Marquez’s Honda.
I am the first Suzuki rider to lead the world championship since Kenny Roberts Jr. in 2000.
“I’m not going to change the way the races are run, that’s for sure. I’ll keep working race after race, trying to get as many points as possible and trying to win every GP,” said before the race this weekend at the same Motorland of Aragon circuit.
“Then we’ll take a look at the championship in the last race and see where we stand.”
With four remaining races, only 15 points are left to Mir, Yamaha’s Quartararo, who has won three races in Spanish, Andalusian and Catalan events, and Ducati’s Maverick Vinales and Andrea Dovizioso.
Vinales in Emilio Romagna and Dovizioso in Austria also won races in 2020.
The premier class has never had a world champion who has not won a race and that has only been achieved twice in other classes.
The diversity of winners in 2020 was partly caused by the absence of six-time MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez.
Marquez broke his arm at the season opener in Jerez and has not raced since.
So far this season there have been eight different winners in 10 races – the joint second highest in a single season. The record is nine, set in 2016.
Seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi is also missing this weekend as the Yamaha veteran recovers from COVID-19 at home in Italy.
The 41-year-old also suspended Aragon’s MotoGP last weekend.
Rossi came under fire on Wednesday from 2007 and 2011 World Champion Casey Stoner, who said he was sad to see the Italian’s performance this year.
“When I went up against Valentino, he was a winner for me, a killer,” Stoner told autosport.com.
“He did everything he could to win races. But now a top 5 or a podium is like a win for him and that’s sad for me.”
Rossi’s best result of the season was a third place at the Andalusian Grand Prix in July.
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