Alex Rins Interview
Friday – Australian GP
Trev was in the press scrum on completion of proceedings on Friday at Phillip Island and reports in with some quotes.
Impressive work, tell us how you did it.
Alex Rins: “Thank you so much, honestly, on the bike I am feeling a lot of pain. I am feeling more pain that I was suspecting before I ride, and maybe because there are a lot of fast sections, corner 10 is braking downhill on the right, but anyway we are working a lot with all the staff from the health tent there, all my personal team, to have less pain. To see if we can try, because now I’m riding super tight on the bike, I cannot half angle and you know here in corner three, corner eight, you need to do angle to turn the bike. But anyway, we did it a great job today, lets see what awaits tomorrow.”
How about the track?
Alex Rins: “The track was a bit bumpy, a bit more bumpy than last year, but more or less OK, the surface was fine. Today the weather was unbelievable it was fantastic, with one leg after a crash… I was at two-tenths off my fastest lap, so it was not so bad.”
After the crash this morning, is everything ok?
Alex Rins: “Everything ok, I just braked a little bit too hard, more bite than normal on the first touch, and I was lucky because I was standing and a little bit high to not touch the ground. But it was without any consequences.”
You said you were riding with one leg, but you were the top Honda, what’s possible for the rest of the weekend?
Alex Rins: “I don’t know honestly, we are working hard, we have tried some different settings on the bike. I also [tried] different spec of rear tail with wings, without wings, so we are doing a lot of comparisons. But you know I’m striving to do a lot of laps. So let’s see.”
WIth dramatic wind forecast for Sunday, 40 km/h gusting to a lot more than that, will you pull some aero off the bike?
Alex Rins: “We can, we already removed some aero parts.”
To help with your leg your leg?
Alex Rins: “A little bit of everything, we have two specs, and we can not remove all the wings (I corrected him on that in a chat afterwards as I do believe that there is a note in the rule book that allows for exactly that at Phillip Island), we just have two specs, homologated. The new one that is the one that brings online in the middle of the season, I already tried in Mandalika, and it was more demanding for the change of direction and to go the fast corners. So we didn’t put it on here. We are riding with the standard or old one.”
MotoGP Friday Afternoon Practice Results
Pos | Rider | Bike | Time/Gap |
1 | Brad BINDER | KTM | 1m27.943 |
2 | Jack MILLER | KTM | +0.148 |
3 | Maverick VIÑALES | APRILIA | +0.269 |
4 | Jorge MARTIN | DUCATI | +0.279 |
5 | Pol ESPARGARO | KTM | +0.420 |
6 | Marco BEZZECCHI | DUCATI | +0.425 |
7 | Fabio DI GIANNANTONIO | DUCATI | +0.509 |
8 | Enea BASTIANINI | DUCATI | +0.510 |
9 | Aleix ESPARGARO | APRILIA | +0.513 |
10 | Johann ZARCO | DUCATI | +0.513 |
11 | Francesco BAGNAIA | DUCATI | +0.699 |
12 | Alex RINS | HONDA | +0.701 |
13 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | KTM | +0.713 |
14 | Raul FERNANDEZ | APRILIA | +0.716 |
15 | Alex MARQUEZ | DUCATI | +0.718 |
16 | Marc MARQUEZ | HONDA | +0.847 |
17 | Fabio QUARTARARO | YAMAHA | +0.994 |
18 | Joan MIR | HONDA | +1.064 |
19 | Luca MARINI | DUCATI | +1.221 |
20 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | APRILIA | +1.768 |
21 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | HONDA | +1.807 |
22 | Franco MORBIDELLI | YAMAHA | +1.965 |
MotoGP FP1 Results
Pos | Rider | Bike | TIme/Gap |
1 | Jorge MARTIN | DUCATI | 1m29.039 |
2 | Augusto FERNANDEZ | KTM | +0.720 |
3 | Maverick VIÑALES | APRILIA | +0.738 |
4 | Brad BINDER | KTM | +1.246 |
5 | Johann ZARCO | DUCATI | +1.272 |
6 | Marco BEZZECCHI | DUCATI | +1.395 |
7 | Alex MARQUEZ | DUCATI | +1.395 |
8 | Jack MILLER | KTM | +1.414 |
9 | Enea BASTIANINI | DUCATI | +1.425 |
10 | Aleix ESPARGARO | APRILIA | +1.441 |
11 | Francesco BAGNAIA | DUCATI | +1.479 |
12 | Marc MARQUEZ | HONDA | +1.575 |
13 | Pol ESPARGARO | KTM | +1.636 |
14 | Alex RINS | HONDA | +1.639 |
15 | Raul FERNANDEZ | APRILIA | +1.714 |
16 | Fabio DI GIANNANTONIOÂ Â | DUCATI | +1.780 |
17 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | HONDA | +1.795 |
18 | Fabio QUARTARARO | YAMAHA | +1.819 |
19 | Franco MORBIDELLI | YAMAHA | +1.901 |
20 | Joan MIR | HONDA | +1.933 |
21 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | APRILIA | +2.124 |
22 | Luca MARINI | DUCATI | +2.293 |
MotoGP Championship Points
Pos | Rider | Points |
1 | BAGNAIA | 346 |
2 | MARTIN | 328 |
3 | BEZZECCHI | 283 |
4 | BINDER | 211 |
5 | ESPARGARO | 177 |
6 | VIÑALES | 165 |
7 | ZARCO | 162 |
8 | MARINI | 144 |
9 | MILLER | 135 |
10 | QUARTARARO | 132 |
11 | MARQUEZ | 108 |
12 | MORBIDELLI | 79 |
13 | OLIVEIRA | 73 |
14 | DI GIANNANTONIO | 70 |
15 | FERNANDEZ | 67 |
16 | MARQUEZ | 64 |
17 | RINS | 54 |
18 | NAKAGAMI | 50 |
19 | FERNANDEZ | 39 |
20 | BASTIANINI | 36 |
21 | PEDROSA | 32 |
22 | MIR | 20 |
23 | ESPARGARO | 12 |
24 | SAVADORI | 9 |
25 | 25 FOLGER | 9 |
26 | 26 BRADL | 8 |
27 | 27 PIRRO | 5 |
28 | 28 PETRUCCI | 5 |
29 | 29 CRUTCHLOW | 3 |
30 | 30 LECUONA | 0 |