The success of Suzuki, the motorcycle without a sponsor

The Suzuki Ecstar rider, Joan Mir, during training sessions for the Valencian Community GP at the Cheste circuit.LLUIS GENE / AFP

Last Sunday Davide Brivio, director of the Suzuki team, turned over the fences that protect the closed park of Cheste to hug Joan Mir and Alex Rins.

"I've never done first and second!" He yelled, spurred on by excitement at Rins' incredulous laugh.

His joy synthesizes the emotional state that a whole factory experiences.

It was 38 years, since 1982, that Suzuki had not placed its two drivers on the top of the podium.

It also happened in Valencia that Mir's triumph consolidated the Majorcan as MotoGP leader: he has a 37-point advantage;

to be champion this Sunday, again in Cheste, it is enough for him to get on the podium, although he could be seventh and take the title if his direct rivals, Quartararo and Rins, do not win.

• Joan Mir, the champion who changed the table for motorcycles

• Mir's brilliant progression and his future at Suzuki

“We live it almost as if we had won the title.

And for Joan it was like an exorcism ”, explains Alberto Gómez, communication director of the Japanese team, on which was Mir's first victory in the category.

“He was very sorry for not having won yet.

He removed all the ghosts, "he adds.

After complying with the record, Mir - seven podiums in the last nine races - aims to win the championship (14.00, DAZN) with one of the most modest factories in the World Motorcycle Championship.

Suzuki is the one that displaces the least personnel to the races: restricted as the teams were this year to 45 members, in their case no more than 32 travel. There are not that many.

In addition, along with Aprilia, it is the only one that does not have a satellite team, so it has much less information to evolve the bike than its rivals.

Despite that, the GSX-RR, zero extravagances, without revolutionary parts or haste, is the most regular machine in the contest, the most constant in the race.

Sample of a job well done.

Hamamatsu's house is a large company — it sells three million cars and more than a million motorcycles;

and it has about 30,000 workers — but it spends a tiny part of its budget on racing.

Between the team and the factory, the MotoGP project involves, Ken Kawauchi, technical director, less than a hundred people, while at Honda, for example, there are less than a thousand workers.

In fact, the Suzuki Racing Company department (dedicated exclusively to MotoGP) was created at the end of 2018. “They are the same as they were before, and they don't even have their own office.

What's more, engineers who also make street bikes participate in the competition project ”, explains Gómez.

“Our budget is fair.

It is company policy, Suzuki prefers to invest in other sectors, in R&D, for example.

We do not lack anything, but we have to be attentive to how we use our resources ”, concedes Brivio.

The Italian, the link between the builder, based in Japan, and the team, based in Europe, is the key figure in the success of a project that is pure romanticism and a peculiar factory, which refuses to dress in other colors than be yours.

The Suzuki is the only motorcycle that does not exhibit more sponsors than its own lubricant, Ecstar, or that of technical suppliers such as Motul or Michelin.

There is not one more sticker.

Not an advertiser who puts money for the cause.

This is what Toshihiro Suzuki, the president, wants, the same one who gave the order to Kawauchi and Brivio not to take out their wallets in search of pilots.

It is no coincidence that Mir, 23, and Rins, 24, are the youngest official team on the grid.

Toshihiro always wanted young talents to be recruited who could grow and evolve with the brand.

It would be the best way for them to identify with his values, he thought.

And it is working.

In fact, Mir himself gave up on an offer from Honda and chose Suzuki instead.

Only five years after making his World Championship debut, in his second MotoGP season, the Mallorcan can become the earliest champion.

Neither Márquez nor Rossi were in such a hurry: they won the premier class six years after making their debut in the championship.

If he succeeds, he will complete a round year for the Japanese house, which celebrates its centenary in 2020, when it also marks 20 years since the title of Kenny Roberts Jr, the last champion with Suzuki.