Suzuki Ecstar’s Joan Mir made an uncharacteristic appearance in Parc Fermê on Saturday after qualifying on the Portuguese GP front row.

Famed for being a Sunday rider, Mir has often struggled in qualifying across his premier class career. Saturday’s challenging conditions levelled the playing field with the 2020 Champion navigating them to a successful second position, after Pramac’s Johann Zarco denied him the pole in the dying seconds of Q2.  

“I think that today, qualifying was a challenge for everyone,” Mir admitted. “Especially after seeing Q1 - many, many crashes, a lot of doubts between the slick or the rain tyres. I think that it was the right choice to put the slicks in the first moment and then make laps out there and improve lap by lap. The conditions were critical, especially in the first laps but I think that the clear strategy was there, to stay out, even if at the end the soft probably drops a bit after a couple of laps.

“I'm happy for the position and everything but more for the confidence,” he continued. “We are building good confidence since the first race in Qatar and step by step I'm getting better, I get the feeling that I wanted back.

"I think that I'm ready, I feel stronger than ever, honestly. I feel great and to make qualifying lap like this one in these conditions, you need confidence. You need a good feeling with the bike, if not, in this condition you are not able to push at 100 per cent. We've done it so I'm happy.

“Congrats to Johann, he was really fast today and let's see tomorrow. The warm up will be super important to understand where we are. This is a track that I normally enjoy, I get good results in the past so we will enjoy tomorrow.

“You can't be relaxed but starting in first row you get a lot of [taken] work off you,” he continued, looking ahead to Sunday’s 25-lap race. "Because starting like in third row/second row is always difficult, something can happen, some touch can condition your race. In this case, you start in the front and you just have to manage a little bit the race. So let's see.”

Having narrowly missed out on the podium at one of his worst tracks on the calendar last time out  in Texas, and securing the front row start this weekend, Mir is confident his season is building as he wants.

“I think that we made a good start of the season, not spectacular, but a good one and also very constant but I was missing something,” he said, sitting fourth in the championship standings. “From Austin on, I understood something. Austin is a track that I don't like it and normally I'm not fast and I was able to make a great race and to finish strong.

“I know that in tracks that were more favourable to my style and everything I would be able to get the speed and so we build the speed till now and I think that every time I'm getting better with this new bike. I don't know what we can do, but the important thing is that the steps that we make forward are a good step and we don't come back. We have to stay there, constant but fast.”