Misfortune for Alex Rins in Qatar

The first race of the 2018 MotoGP calendar took place in hot and windy conditions under Qatar’s famous night lights. Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins took to the start with confidence after a positive morning Warm-Up in which they took 5th and 10th respectively. Although Alex Rins suffered a small crash during this session, there were luckily no consequences.

Alex Rins managed to set two fastest laps (a 1:55.675 on Lap 3, and a 1:55.331 on Lap 6) during his time in the leading pack, and was running a very high pace, responding to over-taking manoeuvres quickly, matching the pace at the front, and keeping himself in contention for at least a Top 5 finish. However, with 10 laps to go, Alex drifted wide in the second corner and found the dirty part of the track, he lost the front and unfortunately crashed out of the race. Despite this, the young Spaniard felt he learned a lot and enjoyed the feelings.

Alex Rins:
“I had a little bit of bad luck, but I still think we had an incredible weekend. The race was quite good, I didn’t have the best start, but when I was behind Dovizioso I was feeling great. It was quite difficult for me to fight on the straight and when I was fighting with Petrucci I was trying to keep the advantage and hold the position, and I crashed. Despite all this, I have learned a lot of useful things for the future, such as being more competitive from the start. We now know that we have the potential, and in Argentina it will be better.”