Rins Struggles to Find His Feet with Yamaha
It’s been a tough start to the 2024 MotoGP season for Alex Rins, who joined the Yamaha Factory Racing team after leaving LCR Honda. In the Portuguese Grand Prix, Rins finished 13th, six places behind his teammate Fabio Quartararo. While this was an improvement from his previous race in Qatar, where he failed to score any points, Rins still faced similar issues with the bike.
Despite using Quartararo’s set-up as a base line, Rins realized that he needed to take a different direction in order to fully understand the 2024-spec M1. He stated, “These two races, Qatar and Portimao, were not the way that I was expecting. We need to work a little bit more on our own.”
Rins struggled with the front of the bike, particularly when releasing the brakes and going on the throttle. He also had difficulty with turning and maintaining lean angle. He explained, “It’s more set-up than my position on the bike. In the middle of the race I tried to change my riding style on the bike to see if I was able to lock more the front, but it was not enough. So looks like we need more weight on the front to make the bike turn.”
Yamaha organized a
