‘New Suzuki engine smooth, turns better’

Joan Mir enjoyed a positive first contact with a host of new items Suzuki has brought to the MotoGP test at Valencia, including a new engine and parts aimed at improving aspects of the GSX-RR’s current chassis.

The Majorcan ended the first day of testing for the 2020 season with a best time of 1m 30.811s, enough for sixth on the timesheets, six tenths of a second back of day one pace setter Fabio Quartararo.

And Mir was impressed by his initial impressions of the new engine. Aside from it being “quite smooth,” much work on the bike’s electronics set-up is still required before he can provide clear feedback.

“The engine at the moment looks quite nice,” he said. “It’s quite ‘rideable’. It’s quite smooth. It’s nice. But it’s difficult to say on the first day. We can see some positive things. But we have to adjust the electronics to make an improvement.

“Then we work a bit on the chassis to turn a bit better. Also we improved a bit in that area. A positive first day for us. Tomorrow we will continue working electronically to improve a bit more the engine and to see how it is when we’re pushing.”

On the new chassis parts, he said, “It turns a bit better. At the moment we didn’t try a new chassis – just some things on the bike that improved the turning.”

And the ’19 chassis was already turning quite well. Or so was the impression of those following Suzuki’s progress. But Mir said, “Not always. Not always. But in slow corners we struggled a little bit. Looks like we made a little improvement.

“[We worked] With new parts [rather than a new chass]. I don’t know now what part but parts from the chassis. So it’s important, this.”

Asked whether he and team-mate Alex Rins were now sharing the testing workload and providing similar feedback, Mir continued: “Yeah, we are working in the same direction. It looks like the comments Alex is giving are the same as me.

“It’s nice because this year I have more experience to give my opinion and to put all together good comments to make a good bike next year. This is really good for Suzuki.”

On his plan for Wednesday, Mir added, “I have more things to try. We tried a lot today. Tomorrow will be an important day. We have to work on the electronics because we have a lot of margin to improve there.”