Suzuki Ecstar was unable to defend its MotoGP title in 2021 as outgoing champ Joan Mir was ultimately forced to settle for third.
Seventy points separated the Spaniard from Yamaha’s new World Champion Fabio Quartararo by Valencia’s final round, 29 ahead of Ducati Lenovo’s Jack Miller after an, at times, needle match of a season between the two which saw Mir denied a victory but claim six podiums across the 18 races.
Alex Rins completed his fifth season with the Hamamatsu firm a disappointing 13th in the standings, having achieved a solitary podium thanks to his second position at Silverstone alongside five DNFs.
“This season was not the best for us compared to last season,” Suzuki’s Shinichi Sahara explained, “but the team work still very good from all the team members, especially from crew chiefs. They gave us some feedback for the development. The improvement is not big, not as big as from one year before but our engineers, they did maximum. I think we need some extra to be competitive and fight for the top. We are ready for next season.”
Reflecting on his riders’ performance throughout the year, Suzuki’s Team and Project Manager stood firm on their potential while highlighting areas of improvement for 2022, and with only one front row start each to their name, Saturday qualifying was at the top of the list.
“Joan, he almost never make mistake, only few mistakes, otherwise he did always a fabulous job, Sahara-san continued. “I think he brought out all the bike's performance for the race but we still have room to improve for the qualifying result. This is also the same for Alex, also he sometimes make mistakes on the race. He made unnecessary crashes but he still has a big motivation to recover to the top next season.”
