Alex Rins arrived in Jerez as co-leader of the MotoGP world championship, tied with Fabio Quartararo, and leaves the Spanish track fourth, 20 points behind the Frenchman, after a race to forget: after a bad qualifying on Saturday, he is ran into a worse start and an off track left him without points.
“Pol Espargaró and Enea Bastianini blocked me a bit at the start,” admitted Rins, who had gained nearly 20 positions in Portimao. “In the race I had some difficulties with the front of the bike, because I suffered from blockages. At turn 11 (the same where he crashed last year) I completely lost the front and I don’t know how I managed to lift the bike” , he said.
“I had a terrible feeling in the race. Riding the Suzuki today was like putting a cat in the water,” he said. “In the corners that came out quite well, it was almost impossible for me to stop the bike. What I found more difficult, however, were the fast corners, the kind of corners that at Portimao had allowed me to make up positions.”
“We have to analyze why it happened. After the mistake, the pace wasn’t bad, I was going more or less like the second group, but we lost some of Suzuki’s DNA.”
Alex Rins, Suzuki MotoGP Team
Photo by: Dorna
The 19th place is a result that does not allow him to score any points and slows him down in his progression in the championship.
“This result hits us like a crash: in the end it is a zero. We are now fourth, 20 points behind the first. There are still many races, so I think we can recover, but we have to understand why it was difficult to drive today.”
In Portugal Joan Mir complained about the same problem on the front. “I don’t think it’s the same problem: it’s another circuit, other tires and there’s another temperature. It’s as if I had rented the wrong kart. The front was constantly locking up.”
“I don’t know if it was the rubber, the grip or something else. I tried a new fork since Saturday, but it felt good. Tomorrow in the test we will go back to the standard fork to see if it improves. At the moment we don’t have many parts to test. “said the Spaniard.