MotoGP, has Rins not learned his lesson after last year?

Last year, Joan Mir proved that he could fight for, and win, the title with a bike, the GSX-RR, that was largely developed by his team-mate Alex Rins, who has been with the manufacturer for longer, since 2017. Having finished third in the championship last season, 2021 is meant to be a comeback year for Rins, who’s often said that he wants to bring the title over to his side of the garage, and yet last Sunday saw him make another of his classic mistakes.

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"A strange crash"

While Rins’ first two races proved very positive and measured, the rider finishing sixth and fourth, Portugal brought a significant DNF. Just as he was fighting for the win, battling to keep pace with leader Fabio Quartararo and doing his best to put him under pressure, Rins found himself on the ground six laps from the end.  The Spaniard (who is soon to be a father) commented: “I had it all under control, the tyres, my breathing, my pace, everything. We checked the data after the incident and I did everything the same, so it was a strange crash”. No logical explanation then, but the crash was reminiscent of those we saw last year in Austria and France. Perhaps the result of over-enthusiasm.

The title slips further away

Mistakes for which the rider pays dearly in the standings. He's now seventh, 38 points behind leader Quartararo and 15 points from his team-mate, who lies fifth. Mir ran a solid race to reach the third step of the podium (also thanks to his team-mate’s crash). After a strong start, Rins does not appear to have learned from last year’s mistakes. And these errors see his hopes of the title slip further away, particularly during a weekend in which he was quicker than Mir and in which he had qualified second. Definitely a wasted opportunity then.

Translated by Heather Watson

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