The youngster set to end a 20-year wait for Suzuki

There are certain similarities between this MotoGP season and that of 2000. Back then it was the consistent apparition of rain that affected more than half of the races, levelling the playing field for the machinery and favouring wet-weather specialists such as Kenny Roberts Jr on the Suzuki RG500.

This year, the absence of reigning six-time world champion Marc Marquez and the introduction of a new Michelin rear tyre have, at least up to now, been the ingredients for the most open and unpredictable season in history.

Statistics from this season show that the only consistent feature of this championship has been the lack of consistency from the riders. With 84 points to his name, Andrea Dovizioso is the lowest scoring leader in history at this stage of a championship. The fact that Mir is in fourth place but lies just four points shy of the top proves the lack of domination from any one rider, with six different winners from the seven rounds so far.

Against this backdrop, the most likely candidate for overall success will be the rider who can remain the most consistent to the end of the season, and when you take a closer look at the recent form book there is nobody more consistent than Mir. Over the last four rounds he has scored more points than anybody with 69, and looks like he has found a way to pick up solid results without taking unnecessary risks.

In just his second season in MotoGP, the Mallorcan is demonstrating maturity beyond his 23 years and he is combining it with a work ethic and determination reminiscent of Marquez. The irony is that Mir could easily have been team-mate to the world champion this season if HRC team manager Alberto Puig had chosen him over Jorge Lorenzo for the Repsol Honda seat, rather than pushing for him to take a place at LCR for 2019.

It was the chance to ride for a factory that convinced the 2017 Moto3 world champion, who scored ten wins from eighteen races on his way to the lightweight class title and spent just one year in Moto2, that his future laid elsewhere - with Suzuki.

Last week, at the first of two back-to-back races at Misano, the Spaniard ruthlessly dispatched Valentino Rossi on the final lap with a sensational overtake that secured the final podium position. Last Sunday in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, he upgraded to second place with a pair of moves on Fabio Quartararo and Pol Espargaro late on, after realising that the Frenchman was unable to shake off the KTM.

"Overtaking is a strength that you have to work on, otherwise you can lose it. It is much better for an aggressive rider to correct himself and reign in the instinct than to try and instil it in a rider who doesn't have it," Mir told Autosport.

Suzuki feel that this 2.0 version of the #36 has been long in the making, and the transformation is evident in the data. Last year, during his rookie MotoGP season, Mir's technicians detected an unusual paradox: the harder Joan was pushing and the more energy he used on the bike, the slower he seemed to go.

"You could say I was 'overriding' a bit, pushing too much. In 2019, the harder I tried the slower I went. Now I am pushing less and going faster," recognises Mir, who through experience has found the right balance between aggression and tact.

Claudio Rainato, Mir's electronics engineer, notes: "We spent all last year working on his throttle control, getting him to be smoother and easier on the tyres. That is precisely what is helping him in 2020. You can see that he gets to the final few laps with more rubber on his tyres than the majority of the others. Last year, when he opened the throttle it was all or nothing. Now he's much more precise."

"It is important not to get obsessed with winning. I want to win, yes, but if I am not winning then I need to be on the podium. The win will come without me looking for it," Joan Mir

His crew chief Frankie Carchedi says Mir had to pack a lot of learning into 2019 given his lack of world championship experience. Mir first appeared on the world stage as a replacement rider for Leopard Racing in the 2015 Phillip Island Moto3 race, and was running in the podium battle before a crash.

Making his full-time debut the year later, he scored his first win in Austria, which gave way to his dominant title run in 2017. One year in Moto2 in 2018 before stepping up to MotoGP with Suzuki, mimicking Maverick Vinales' career trajectory back in 2015.

"In 2019 we had to accelerate the learning process because he didn't have much world championship experience and he was coming off the back of just one season in Moto2," Carchedi told Autosport. "In 2019 it was like we packed two years into one, but now we are seeing everything he learnt. Thanks to that, we have two versions of Joan: the smooth one that looks after the tyres and then, as we have seen in the final laps of the last two races, the aggressive version."

PLUS: How Vinales went from 'kitty' to MotoGP 'beast' at Misano

Rainato backs up the theory with some interesting data from the first San Marino race: "In Turn 3, Joan opened the throttle to just 50% on every lap of the race apart from when he passed Valentino, when he opened it 100%."

As for Mir, it is clear he is 'in the zone' and he knows what strategy to employ to maximise his potential. Some riders would have struggled to process the incident in the Styrian GP, when he lost out on a likely victory after the race was red-flagged due to Maverick Vinales' brake failure-induced accident. For Mir, though, it served as confirmation of his improving form and gave him a timely boost of self-confidence.

"It is important not to get obsessed with winning," says the Suzuki man, who is nevertheless keen to distance himself from talk of the title. "I want to win, yes, but if I am not winning then I need to be on the podium. The win will come without me looking for it. I still haven't earned the right. Before that, I need to start winning races."

The majority of riders agree that the GSX-RR looks like the most complete package on the grid and Mir's performances seem to confirm it. The chassis is similar in handling performance to the Yamaha, whilst the extra horses that Suzuki squeezed out of the engine over the winter are making life easier for the riders on board.

Crucially, the bike also seems to suffer less from the capricious effects that the new Michelins have on the other bikes. The main area for improvement, meanwhile, is its performance over one lap in qualifying - especially at circuits like Misano, which offer high levels of grip and result in the rear tyre pushing the front, making it difficult for the rider to turn the bike.

"We are showing that we are capable of consistent results even without starting at the front, but if we keep on like this, starting from so far back, there will also be times when it doesn't work out," adds the youngster, who could well end up making it a particularly special centenary celebration for the Hamamatsu factory.