Over the course of his four-year tenure at Honda's factory MotoGP team - which is now officially over at the end of 2026 - Joan Mir's most notable record has, unfortunately, been his number of crashes.

But, while he might have spent more time in the gravel than on the podium, there's an argument to be made that the 2020 world champion's time there has been a success - for Honda if not for himself.

He's finished just 23 Sunday races in the points out of the 43 that he has started since joining the team in 2023, and this current season has been a particularly bad one for Mir, with only six points-scoring finishes from 20 opportunities so far.

But he's managed to do something that no other works rider except Marc Marquez has done in the past five years: drag the RC213V kicking and screaming back onto the podium.

Mir's record of finishes is, admittedly, awful - and yet, his highest finishing positions are considerably ahead of his team-mates most of the time.

In 2025, for example, he finished only a few places behind both team-mate Luca Marini and satellite rider Johann Zarco despite Marini in particular being one of the most consistent racers on the grid. His crashes were not as costly in the points as you might expect because they were mixed with highs such as his podiums.

And when Mir is questioned about it - as he regularly is - he's adamant about what he believes his role within Honda is, and that it involves pushing the bike to its limits to accelerate development as quickly as possible.

"I understand racing as being about chances," he told The Race earlier this season. "I like to start the race knowing I have a chance. 

"I don't enjoy this if I am only being a part of it. I enjoy it when I have the chance to fight for something big, and that is causing me to have a lot of crashes. I have to do it, and I have zero regrets.

"When I'm alone, I'm able to ride very fast and quite safe. But when I follow the others, to stop the bike behind them in the slipstream of the people with this aero, you have to risk, to stop in the same way.

"If I have to recover, I have to double risk, and that increases incrementally our chance of being on the ground. That's why I crash."

There is a logic to that, as well, given the way in which Honda's machine has developed in recent seasons into a bike that enters 2027's new 850cc era expected to once again be fighting at the front more consistently - ironically a step that the Gresini Ducati-bound Mir is not going to benefit from.

The bike has, since the advent of MotoGP's aero wars in the early 2020s, been far from the front. Already struggling before the pandemic to keep up and absolutely exposed during it with the absence of the injured Marquez, it's been a long time now since anyone but the nine-time world champion has looked capable on it.

Since the departure of Dani Pedrosa, no rider except Marquez has won on the factory bike. Since COVID, only two other works Honda riders have even scored podiums: a single one at the start of 2022 for Pol Espargaro's, and Mir's two third place finishes in four races at the end of the 2025 season.

Even in 2026, among all of Mir's crashes, there has been yet more sparks of brilliance from him, with strong finishes like his fifth at Brno and most of his crashes coming when five places in front of team-mate Marini.

And, while his time at Honda might be done, there's got to be light at the end of the tunnel for Mir in 2027, knowing that he's going to jump onto a bike where he doesn't need to take so much risk in order to be competitive.

Absolutely still motivated to fight for the top places (otherwise he too could ride around in 15th and take safe finishes with much less risk of injury), he's going to join Gresini Racing on a factory-spec bike and once again be a frontrunner in the class - so much so that it won't be a surprise if he wins two or three times as many races in 2027 as he did en route to the 2020 world championship!