Contrary to what many may sometimes think, MotoGP riders are not machines and everyone, across the board, has shown solidarity first with the victims of the Dana storm, and then with a possible final round of the category in Valencia, and Joan Mir did not escape the “rule”.
In Malaysia preparing for the local GP, the last of the Asian phase this year, Mir did not shy away from the issue of the moment and showed solidarity with the people who are suffering at this time: ‘I am very concerned about what happened in Valencia and in a large part of Spain due to this storm. Everything related to sport is now secondary and the important thing is that people are safe and to send them all our strength, due to the people who died, disappeared, and we are all with them. There is nothing more I can say’.
If it is possible to imagine a race at the Spanish circuit in two weeks, Mir replied: ‘I don’t think we really know the magnitude of everything that happened. One day we had some images of floods, we saw some disasters in some places but every time we saw more images we could see how big the problem is there. I don’t know what we can do to race there but apart from that, the impact that this can have on society, and with people going through a bad time, is something that is not in my hands to decide [whether to race or not]. I don’t know, the priority for now is to take care of the city and not the track, that’s my understanding’.
Regarding the race itself, Mir believes that there will be news soon: ‘Certainly the organizations are working to try to give us a solution as quickly as possible, to everyone, and we will see’.