Mir and Rins round off 2020 with 1st and 3rd in Championship

Alex Rins: 15th (+ 27.776)
Joan Mir: DNF

The 2020 MotoGP World Championship came to a close under sunny skies at Portugal’s stunning Autodromo Internacional do Algarve. It was a tough race for Team Suzuki Ecstar’s riders, Alex Rins and Joan Mir, from their grid spots in 10th and 20th respectively.

Both riders made good progress off the line, with Rins slotting into seventh and Mir into 15th, but the highly competitive race was hard to manage. Mir had contact with a couple of riders and he dropped back to 20th place, while Rins slipped to eighth.

The pair began to recoup and settle into a rhythm in order to regain the lost places, but for title holder Mir it became an impossible task and an electronics issue ruled him out of the race on lap 16. Rins began to close in on the group in front of him, but as the 25 lap race wore on he started to struggle with feeling and tyre wear and he had to settle for a 15th place finish.

Despite the disappointment in Portugal, Team Suzuki Ecstar are still extremely proud of the results achieved this season with Mir taking the Riders’ Championship, Rins taking third place in the final standings, and Team Suzuki Ecstar topping the Teams’ Championship. All these fantastic results come in the same year that Suzuki won the Endurance World Championship with SERT, as well as the company’s 100th Anniversary and 60 Years in Racing milestones.

The entire team would like to extend their gratitude not only to Suzuki and the riders, but to all those who made this season possible and to all the fans and partners who supported us throughout.

Alex Rins:

“Today’s race was a bit difficult and I felt that I made the wrong tyre choice. I struggled from the start of the race with the hard rear tyre, and at the start I was able to close in on the riders in front of me but then lap-by-lap I was losing grip and I began to drop back. But in the end I’m happy with my work this year, and despite the injury and some crashes I still managed to get third in the championship. I’m really motivated to start next season already!”

Joan Mir:

“I couldn’t do a lot of laps today, but the ones that I did do I really enjoyed! I want to apologise to Pecco because he got the worst of the touch we had, so I’m sorry for him. After the contact I started to have some problems with the bike on the electronics side and it was impossible for me to finish the race. For sure we’ll find the problem and work on it for the future. It’s a pity I couldn’t get a good result today, I wanted to end on a high, but of course I’m still so happy to have won the title and to be able to celebrate tonight with the team and with Alex, who got third in the standings.”