MotoGP: Four crashes in three races for Alex Rins

Alex Rins is having a torrid time at the moment crashing four times in three races.

Alex Rins is having a tough old time with his Suzuki at the moment throwing it up the road nearly every session at Le Mans before crashing twice during the race, these crashes follow two incredibly tough races which saw him crash out of second place in Portimao battling for the lead and crashing in the early stages of the race in Jerez, the Spanish rider currently sitting in P12 in the standings with only 23 points to his name.

He comes into the season with a very bitter taste in his mouth, a taste which can only be quenched by podium champagne, you see Alex Rins was supposed to be the man to take Suzuki to a MotoGP title, he was the golden boy, the #1 rider and the man Suzuki had consistently confided in and held in incredibly high regard yet in 2020 he was forced to sit back and watch his young teammate Joan Mir win the championship in only his second season thanks to incredible consistency and a tiny sprinkle of luck thrown in there for good measure.

Now you may already be up in arms about the ‘luck’ comment, it’s true you make your own luck and you don’t win a title by just being lucky, many things must fall into place especially over a MotoGP season for you to be able to be crowned the champion, it is like a moving puzzle race by race and if one of these moving parts was to malfunction then your title fight is thrown out of the window. For Alex Rins it was over at the first round thanks to a qualifying crash which injured his shoulder and forced him to the sidelines, he would spend many races recovering from this, even in round seven at Misano he struggled with his shoulder saying it still wasn’t strong enough to fight for better positions despite some incredible results including a P4 in Brno plus leading the Austrian Grand Prix for about 5 metres before crashing out.

Rins crashed out of Portimao chasing a win. 

His championship dream going to his teammate will have spurred Rins on to do incredible things in 2021 and honestly it has, yes he has had some tough races but he is taking more risks this year to try and squeeze some extra points, a true champion knows when to take points but a champion must also take risks as Rins did in Portimao as he tried to keep up with the blisteringly fast Fabio Quartararo, Rins was setting and breaking race lap records lap by lap trying to keep up with the fast Frenchman taking that risk to try and get the race win before crashing out of second place.

Unfortunately this crash has had a negative effect on his confidence in race situations which was fired home at Jerez crashing in only the third lap of the race, his Jerez record is not the best and aside from his 2019 podium he has only finished the race without a crash once last year either crashing or not even riding. Moving to Le Mans the riders were faced with incredibly tricky conditions with all three classes racking up a crazy 117 crashes between them with Rins crashing 3+ times including twice in the race.

He noted that he had a great start to the race feeling incredibly strong on his GSX-RR before the rain came down and spoiled his little party forcing him into the pit lane for his wet bike, upon exiting pit lane heading to turn 4 he braked slightly and lost the front end taking his third crash in three races, he then had to drag his damaged motorcycle back to pit lane to exchange it for a dry bike with wet tyres, this combination was a nightmare with Rins struggling to warm up the tyres and was having to ride aggressively to push heat into the tyres to provide him with more grip. This would be his downfall as he crashed again from P19 suffering his fourth crash in three races.

Now despite this pretty worrying record Rins remains in high spirits and feels he can come back and perform at Jerez feeling incredibly strong on the Suzuki despite the crashes, only time will tell if he can improve at a track he has historically been strong at.