Joan Mir breaks MotoGP podium drought: “I couldn’t imagine that amount of time”
Joan Mir ends a near four-year MotoGP podium drought with his best Honda result.
Joan Mir ended almost four years of frustration with his first podium in Honda colours at Motegi.
It came a massive 1,422 days after the former world champion last stood on the rostrum at Portimao in November of 2021, with Suzuki.
Since then, injuries, an uncompetitive Honda and misfortune have left Mir battling even to finish, suffering 29 retirements since the start of last season.
Mir's 67-race barren podium run was the longest endured by a former champion in the MotoGP four-stroke era with the exception of Nicky Hayden, who spent the last two seasons of his career on a CRT/Open class bike.
“From the day that we decided to move to Honda in a difficult period, we already knew that a long time without good results could happen, but I could not imagine that amount of time," Mir acknowledged.
“The reality is that it has been a super-difficult period. I just never gave up, trying to see the positives from the things that were happening to us; now you can imagine how nice the taste of this podium is.”
Longest podium gap after winning a ‘MotoGP’ title:
Nicky Hayden: 82 GPs 2011-2016 (retired)
Joan Mir: 67 GPs 2021-2025
Fabio Quartararo: 29 GPs 2023-2025
Valentino Rossi: 28 GPs 2020-2021 (retired)
Jorge Lorenzo: 19 GPs 2018-2019 (retired)
Marc Marquez: 10 GPs 2022-2023
Francesco Bagnaia: 5 GPs 2025
Casey Stoner: 3 GPs 2009
The long wait contrasts with Mir’s meteoric rise earlier in his career.
The Spaniard spent just three seasons in Moto3/Moto2 before reaching MotoGP, a feat matched only by Pedro Acosta.
It then took Mir 20 races at Suzuki for his first MotoGP podium, finishing that same second season as world champion.
But after six podiums and third in the standings the following year, Mir’s success dried up.
An injury-marred final Suzuki season in 2022 was followed by a move to Repsol Honda as Marc Marquez’s team-mate in 2023.
While Marquez abandoned Honda for Gresini Ducati in 2024, Mir slipped to a career low of 21 points and didn’t break the grand prix top ten.
HRC’s overhaul of its MotoGP project finally began to pay off this season.
But while LCR’s Johann Zarco took victory and podium glory, and Mir’s team-mate Luca Marini made a big leap forward, the Spaniard suffered a nightmare run of retirements.
Everything finally came together for Mir in Japan, where he was fourth in Friday practice, stunned by splitting the factory Ducatis on the front row in qualifying and then battled Marc Marquez on the way to a close fourth in the Sprint.
The Grand Prix seemed a more demanding prospect, but Mir settled into an early fourth place, then claimed the podium by overtaking a fading Pedro Acosta at mid-distance.
Mir took the chequered flag a safe three seconds clear of Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi.
“I just enjoyed every lap of this race, fighting with these guys after a long time not doing it,” Mir said.
“Super-happy for the team, they deserved a lot, also here in Japan. I cannot think of a better place to do our comeback and just super-happy for Honda, thank you to them - they deserve it.”
"I know what I achieved"
The ‘as good as your last race’ nature of motorsport, combined with social media, means the 28-year-old’s achievements have often been forgotten.
“In sport in general, you are what you make in your last race,” Mir said. “Not just me, I think everyone has the same problem. At the end, it’s very easy to hide behind the phone and to speak about shit that doesn’t give any benefit to anyone.
“But, at the end, I know what I achieved. I think the people that know a little bit about this world and about sport in general value everything.
“I’m not super-good today and yesterday I was a disaster. It’s not like that.”
Mir has also shown top-five potential in other grand prix weekends.
“The potential that I had in this grand prix is not something that surprised me. The podium, yes. But the potential itself not so much, because even in Misano I had good potential on Friday,” he said.
“Also in Brno I started quite in front. The thing is that we could not put a result together.
“My goal at the beginning of the weekend was to try to put a weekend together.
“It was not a podium that I was thinking about, was more a top five, but I had the opportunity to fight for something bigger and I did it.”
Mir’s 22 points from Motegi move his season tally to 72 and up to 15th in the world championship.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
