The press conference held after the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez brought together Marc Márquez, Álex Rins and Maverick Viñales.
As usual, we report here the raw words ofAlex Rins, without the slightest journalistic interpretation.
Alex, you are 2nd in the race and now 2nd in the championship. Do you think Marc was out of reach today, since you started from the 4th row?
Alex Rins : “yes, of course, we had an incredible race. As you say, we started from the 4th row and, before the race, my team and I knew that our pace was more or less the same as Marc's. We know that Marc always goes up a notch during the race, which I was quite calm about. The only thing is that I tried to overtake very quickly, and honestly I lost a lot of time with Dovizioso. The Ducati brakes very hard and its acceleration is quite good. But anyway, I gradually overtook the drivers then I did a lot of laps with Marc in front of me, waiting for him to make a mistake. But hey, 2nd position was incredible for us.”
You now seem to have the pace, but qualifying still appears to be a problem...
“yes, we still have to work harder in qualifying. I would like to start better each time but it's difficult: it's MotoGP and doing a very fast lap is hard. But whatever happens, I’m going to try to progress, I’m going to try to continue on the same path.”
You made two spectacular overtakes in the last corner. Was this your strong point on the circuit?
“Honestly, we need to improve on braking. I think something is still missing to stop the bike but I also have to be aggressive to overtake, especially the Ducati. I overtook Petrucci there and I think that was the only place. I also overtook Dovi but he overtook me on the straight. But anyway, I think we are in the right direction because our bike is good and works well, but we can always improve something.”
When you say you need to improve qualifying, are you talking about yourself or the bike?
" Sincerely, I do not know. As I said before, we need to improve braking and so maybe that's one of the things we'll work on tomorrow (at Monday's test). And maybe if we can improve that in qualifying, things will become easier, but I don't know the problem precisely. I don't know. I try, I try, I try to put the bike to the limit, but honestly I don’t know what the problem is.”
At mid-race, Fabio Quartararo was in a solid 2nd position. Did you expect him to be this strong?
“Honestly, after qualifying, I thought " OK ! If Fabio does the first 3 or 4 laps, he can be there”. You know, he's very young, he's a rookie, and he gets very good times. So it’s good to see a young driver at this level.”
Ranking of the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
