Sayonara Suzuki
Why MotoGP is set to lose its only real 'team' - plus my favourite Suzuki memories
Looks like we’ve got to say goodbye to the only MotoGP team that feels worthy of the name these days. In that sense, the sport will be losing more than just a manufacturer when Suzuki walks away at the end of 2022.
Suzuki may not win a lot of races or have the out-and-out fastest bike. On current form, you’d definitely choose something else for qualifying. Although it has a recent world champion in Joan Mir, it’s probably fair to say it still lacks a superstar in the mould of past heroes Kevin Schwantz or Barry Sheene. And it hasn’t scored world titles on a regular basis since the early eighties. But it’s a real team.
Which other factory squad can expect both of its riders to be front-runners almost every weekend? Honda and Yamaha, now evidently in a situation where only Marc Márquez and Fabio Quartararo can be competitive on their respective bikes, don’t qualify. They’ve either failed on the recruitment front, on producing a more broadly rideable bike, or both. Ducati’s works team went largely AWOL for the early part of 2022, until Francesco Bagnaia’s breakthrough last time out at Jerez. KTM? All over the place. Aprilia? Still waiting for the real Maverick Viñales to stand up.
But Suzuki, a relatively humble factory setup with no satellite teams around to fly the flag if things go awry, is the only combination of ‘two riders + bike’ that seems to work on a consistent basis. Mir and Rins are usually to be found near each other on the racetrack – at least by the time the end of a race approaches – which suggests they’re both getting somewhere near the maximum from the machine over a weekend. That’s also an indication that their employers have given them a user-friendly tool that doesn’t condemn them to bad days at the office. Just what you expect from a team pulling together in an efficient manner.
And it’s surely no coincidence that quite apart from on-track performance, the Suzuki squad is known for being one of the happiest camps in the paddock.
It'll be interesting to see which ‘team’, if any, manages to replicate the Suzuki approach best in 2023 and beyond.
Memories
When I first got into watching MotoGP – or the 500cc World Championship as it was then – cigarette advertising was all the rage and the bikes were a sea of colour. Rothmans Honda, Marlboro Yamaha…and Lucky Strike Suzuki. The swashbuckling Schwantz (try saying that fast) claimed the title in 1993 on the latter – and it became an iconic livery for me.
I like to think that if I scratched away at the blue on Mir or Alex Rins’s bike, Lucky Strike colours would emerge. Silly, I know. But in my mind, that paint job is part of Suzuki’s DNA.
Later, I remember rooting hard for Kenny Roberts Jr. on his way to the crown at the turn of the millennium. Lucky Strike was gone by then, but there was an irresistible underdog factor that got me behind ‘KRJR’. Honda had won six titles – mostly Mick Doohan’s doing – since Schwantz’s year. I just wanted to see someone else take the glory.
2020 had its parallels to that. Once again, Suzuki was the manufacturer to end a Honda streak following four Márquez championships. But perhaps my interest in seeing Mir win this time around was more to do with a sneaky bet I’d made on him when he was way down the table early on in that chaotic championship!
Going out strong
Assuming this really is Suzuki’s final year, how will that affect a team that has certainly done enough to show it’s a title contender? Rins has looked somewhere near his best once again, and may even be a better bet than Mir at this stage.
So, will Suzuki go all out for one last title, throwing everything it can at that quest – or have the bosses mentally checked out already? Either way, how will the shell-shocked crew on the ground respond to this unexpected news? Will they be distracted by suddenly having to send out CVs en masse?
The results in the next three or four races – can you imagine the emotion if Rins or Mir wins this weekend? – may be decisive in answering all of those questions. That provides yet another fascinating sub-plot to the French Grand Prix and beyond…