Top 13 Finish for Rins at 2024 MotoGP Spain

The Gran Premio de España was a joint effort by Álex Rins and Fabio Quartararo in the Spanish sunshine nearly the entire race, initially with Quartararo in the lead, then Rins taking charge with four laps remaining. The Spaniard rode to P13, while the Frenchman finished P15.

Rins kicked off the Race from P25 on the grid but moved up to P18 after the first couple corners, riding behind Quartararo. Rivals fell as the race progressed, and the two were up to P13 and 14 by lap 18, which was Rins’ cue to make a move. On lap 22, he overtook Quartararo and crossed the finish line in 13th, 28.452sec from first.

“Starting from last was tough,” Rins said. “I recovered positions, then I was behind Fabio for almost the entire race. When I saw he was starting to struggle, I was able to catch up and overtake him. Still not the result we wanted but the race gave us lots of data to analyze.”

El Diablo hoped to duplicate his strong effort from Saturday’s Sprint but launching from P23 didn’t get him as far up the order. He settled into P19 after the busy opening corners, right in front of Rins. But he struggled to make further progress, and arm pain towards the end allowed Rins and Takaaki Nakagami to pass him in the final stages. Quartararo finished P15, 32.015sec from the winner.

“We had issues with rear grip, causing the bike to be really physically tiring to ride,” Quartararo explained. “Hard braking made my arm painful, so the last ten laps I wasn’t able to brake properly and had to slow down. We need to figure out rear grip and turning so that I can feel better on the bike and become faster.”

Quartararo sits 12th in the overall standings with 25 points; Rins climbs up to 19th with six points. Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP is now ninth in the team championship with 31 points, and Yamaha holds fourth in the manufacturer championship with 27 points.

NEXT RACE

Team ENEOS heads to the Michelin Grand Prix de France in Le Mans from May 10-12, 2024.