Sahara: 2021 ‘not the best season’, Suzuki finishes the year winless

Suzuki boss Shinichi Sahara is hoping the team can rediscover it’s winning touch in 2022 after a disappointing 2021 MotoGP season.

The reigning 2020 champions courtesy of Joan Mir taking home the riders’ title, were winless in 2021 which was the Japanese manufacturer's first season without a victory since 2018. 

Despite having four more races this year, Mir could only manage six podium finishes as opposed to the seven he scored in 2020, which included a maiden MotoGP win at Valencia. 

Mir was still able to claim third in the championship due to his solid consistency considering Suzuki seemingly failed to make any real improvements from 2020, while the team was also one of the last to introduce their ride height device.

For team-mate Alex Rins, it was somewhat of a disastrous season for the three-time premier class race winner as he managed just one podium, while the Spaniard also suffered seven crashes in race situations - four of which came in consecutive rounds (Portimao, Jerez, Le Mans and Mugello). 

Speaking about both riders and the season as a whole, Sahara said: "This season was not the best season for us compared to last season. But all the team still worked pretty good, especially the crew chiefs who gave us some feedback for the development. 

"The improvement is not big, not as big as from the year before. But our factory engineers gave the maximum and I think we need something extra to have a complete bike for the top. 

"We are ready for next season. About Joan [Mir] he almost never made a mistake in the races and I think he got all the performance from the bike in the races, but we still have room to improve in the qualifying. 

"This is also the same for Alex [Rins]. Sometimes he made mistakes in the races and made unnecessary crashes, but he still has a lot of motivation to recover to the top next season."