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Joan Mir from Spain and the SUZUKI ECSTAR team celebrate their MotoGP title.
• This comes a week after finally getting his first Grand Prix win at the same Valencia circuit.
• Mir finished seventh in the Valencia Grand Prix won by Italian Franco Morbidelli.
• For more racing stories, go to Wheels24.
Suzuki’s Joan Mir won the MotoGP world title on Sunday one week after finally securing his first Grand Prix win at the same Valencia circuit.
The 23-year-old Mallorcan inherited the crown vacated by injured six-time champion Marc Márquez by finishing seventh in the Valencia Grand Prix won by Italian Franco Morbidelli.
The champion celebrated by pulling horses and screeching his smoking tires in front of the paddock where his family waited for him to celebrate.
“I’ve been fighting for this my whole life, I can’t laugh or cry, but I’m inundated with emotions,” Mir said.
This was the first MotoGP title won by a Suzuki rider since 2000.
After a season of solid consistency, Mir held a 37-point lead, meaning he only needed to finish on the podium in the penultimate race to secure the title, while fourth would have been enough if neither Alex Rins nor Fabio Quartararo won. .
Frenchman Quartararo ruined any chance he had of prolonging the title race with a knockdown that knocked him out of the race.
The 21-year-old had often seemed Marquez’s most likely heir.
But the Yamaha-SRT drivers’ championship was already in a serious wobble when he hit the deck on the first lap of last weekend’s race and his luck didn’t improve Sunday.
Morbidelli won the penultimate race of the season, leading from pole to the last lap when he came under intense pressure from Australian Jack Miller.
“I fell short,” said the Australian. “There was a lot of tailwind that prevented me from getting the victory, but we are happy to be back on the box (podium).”
Morbildelli and Miller played cat and mouse by overtaking each other several times in the final hairpin turns.
Early Sunday, Spanish Jorge Martín slipped away to win the Moto2 GP by beating his compatriot Héctor Garzo and Italian Marco Bezzecchi just before the finish line.
This marked a second win of the season for Martin, who was the 2018 Moto3 champion.
The title itself will come until the last minute in Portugal next week with championship leader Enea Bastianini of Italy with 194 points after her sixth place in Valencia, leading Briton Sam Lowes by 14 points.
In the lower ranks starting 13th on the grid, Italian Tony Arbolino won the Moto3 GP to climb third in the standings with 159 pts.
Spaniard Albert Arenas was third on the day and leads the championship with 170 points ahead of Japanese Honda rider Ai Ogura 162.
