Mir: Difficult to fight the Ducatis

After just eight points from his opening five MotoGP races, all from an eighth place in Qatar, Joan Mir heads for the summer break having pulled in 31 points from the past four rounds.

The Suzuki rookie signed off the opening half of the season with a seventh-place in Germany, just behind a trio of Ducati riders.

Mir had briefly fought his way through the Desmosedicis, only to be re-passed in the last eight laps.

"I didn't make my usual good start and this conditioned the race because I killed the tyre a bit at the beginning and then on the last laps I was struggling," Mir explained.

"It was a shame because I think today I had a little bit more than seventh position, but for me it's difficult to fight with the Ducatis.

"So we will try to improve in this area, to be stronger, but I'm really happy about our potential in the last races."

"Joan did a really good race, he was faster than his group at times, but it’s difficult to overtake here in Sachsenring," agreed team manager Davide Brivio. "Anyway, it was great for him to be around much more experienced riders, and battle with them."

Mir, now 13th in the world championship, was the only GSX-RR to reach the flag after team-mate Alex Rins fell from second place.

“It was such a shame that Alex had a crash here, because both times [Assen and Sachsenring] I think we would have been on the podium. But we’ll fight back after the summer break," said Suzuki technical manager Ken Kawauchi.

"Joan did a great battle with those in his group and he is continuing to improve all the time.

"We wanted to have a great weekend in honour of Ito-san [Mitsuo Ito, former Suzuki racer and TT winner who has died last Wednesday], and it didn’t work out quite as we’d hoped, but we’re really looking forward to coming back in Brno.”