Suzuki’s Alex Rins, despite his frustrating fall from second place in the French Grand Prix, remains optimistic after battling his way back from a low-qualifying position to bid for victory.
Despite the difficult wet conditions, the Spaniard quickly found himself in a groove and made fourth place after just a few tours.
He then closed the leading Ducati duo at a speed of around four tenths of a second per lap to unleash an exciting battle of victory that was underscored by a brave move at Turn 7 in the final stages where he was successful, both Jack Miller and Andrea Dovizioso for the second late.
However, his pursuit of front runner Danilo Petrucci would come to an end just one lap later when he dropped his GSX-RR at Turn 2 with only half a dozen tours left and took the checkered flag to 16th place after having to stop again, to remove a Marshal’s strap that had stuck to the back of the Suzuki during his previous engagement.
The two-time MotoGP winner described his early start as “unfortunate” and added that a higher starting position would avoid additional “nervousness” at future events.
“The crash was very unfortunate, but I’m glad I got through the first part of the race by starting backwards and then trying to find the bike’s limits pretty quickly,” said Rins.
“I’m glad we did it (recovered from 16th on the grid) and despite the crash I had there (up front), I recovered a few seconds on the Ducati when I was there with Jack (Miller) started fighting, which was nice.
“The overtaking I pulled on the straight (on the way to Turn 7) was incredible. I drove the bike so it was great.
“Then I had the crash, but I’m looking forward to my next home race in Aragon.
“It will be important to do a good qualifying first to avoid the nervousness and problems, because it was definitely difficult today, as we saw when Valentino (Rossi) fell, he went under like nothing.”
Suzuki’s GSX-RR machine was expected to perform well on the tight and twisty Le Mans track, although both examples struggled significantly throughout the weekend due to the colder conditions the bike had all weekend.
After both Rins and teammate Joan Mir were only able to achieve 16th and 14th place on the grid, Mir continued to suffer from pace in 26 laps during the encounter on Sunday.
Although he had a better feeling with the Suzuki in the second half of the race, he could only achieve a mystifying 11th place and thus lost two points to championship leader Fabio Quartararo, although the Frenchman also had a tough day.
Rins slipped to 12th place in the points table due to his fall after a difficult year so far after taking just one podium in the preliminary round in Barcelona after starting the season after sustaining a shoulder injury in Jerez.