Despite making it directly into the second qualifying session, the MotoGP Catalan GP was far from favorable for Álex Rins. The Monster Energy Yamaha rider experienced a stark difference in performance during the races, finishing 20th in Sunday’s main race in Barcelona—last among those who completed the race.
The Spaniard explained that although he had a good start, issues began with braking into the first corner: ‘It was a really tough race, starting from the beginning. The launch was not that bad, I was able to gain some positions on the first meters, but then on the first hard braking, I just felt absorbed by [Jorge] Martín, the rider in front, and I was so close to hit him. So I decided to go out, to go on the Long Lap, and then I was last. So I tried to don’t overheat the tyre overtaking the riders in front to arrive to the end of the race with a bit of margin’.
Despite his attempts at management, Rins encountered motor and tyre issues, as he revealed: ‘So I tried to overtake them, I was riding on my pace, but 13 or 12 laps from the end I started to suffer with the engine response. I was holding the throttle on turn 4, turn 9, turn 12, and the RPMs were not going up in a proper way. It was something with the injection. But we also had many, many problems with the rear tyre. From corner to corner, I was not able to open at 100%, because I was spinning so much, I was losing the rear. It was really, really tough. Luckly we took some information for the future, for the low grip tracks, and in less than five days we jump again on the bike in Mugello’.
When asked to elaborate on the engine problems, Rins said: ‘I was trying to neutralizing the engine after releasing brakes, and on that moment the engine response was not very clear. We were trying different strategies of electronics, because this weekend we struggled a lot with the low grip conditions. So in the warm-up we tried to see a little bit different strategies on the numbers, but it looks like that for the race was not the best’.