Qatar MotoGP: 'Angry' Rins goes down fighting
Alex Rins rolled up his sleeves and took the fight t🐼o🔥 Danilo Petrucci in Sunday's season-opening Qatar MotoGP.
But it backfired when Rins, who had qualified a MotoGP best of sixth, fell from🅠 his Suzuki on an unlucky lap 13 of 22.
"I was starting from sixth position - my best result. Then the feeling with th𒊎e clutch was not so good on the start and we missed a bit on the first lap," explained Rins, who dropped back to ninth.
Alex Rins ro🔯lled up his sleeves and took the fight to Danilᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚo Petrucci in Sunday's season-opening Qatar MotoGP.
But it backfired when Rins, who had qualified 🥃a MotoGP best of sixth, fell from his Suzuki on an unlucky lap🌺 13 of 22.
"I was starting from sixth position - my best result. Then the feeling with the clutch was not so 🐲good on the start and we missed a bit on the first lap," explained Rins, who dropped back to ninth.
The𒊎 Spaniard was initially able to shadow race winner Andrea Dovizioso as he moved through a vast lead group, but lost touch with the Ducati rider when he jumped from sixth to fourth on lap 8.
"When I was with Dovi I was following him easy - ℱnot very easy, but easy. But when he started to overtake on the straight it was impossible for me. I wasn’t competitive on the brakes today."
And that wou🔯ld prove his downfall, just aft🐻er the halfway stage.
"Petrucci was really good on the brakes. I was tryin🎀g to fight with him for sixth position when I lost the front.
"Finally, if I had stayed in ninth or tenth I would have finished the race in that posi🌼tion. I think that we have potential for ൩more.
"I’m angry. I want to learn more and I think we have mor♉e potential to be closer to the front.
"Fighting with Petrucci, who is a really good braker. We crashed. Nothing▨ more. I didn’t do a big mistake, like in Valencia for example when I started in second gear.
"Today I was more calm and more consistent."
Although losing out on the brakes, Rins and the GSX-RR were gainಞing ♔in other areas.
"What I saw in the race was that we are really competitive in fast corners and exiting from sꦦlow corners. In general we have a really like stable bike. We have a really well balanced bike.
"Today we were missing a little bit 🦂in brakiꦛng but in the rest of the areas, it was perfect.
"For example on the straight I started from the last corner♈ and I think I arrived [at turn one] 0.3 or 0.5 from Petrucci. To gain this is very difficult. Finally in the fast corners they were disturbing me a little bit. But anyway, we’ll keep working."
Team-mate Andrea Iannone, who fell while fighting for a poཧdium in Qatar last season, finished ninth.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of 🀅the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marque💮z’s injury issues.
