A thrilled Alex Rins enthused that he and his LCR Honda squad are still “building our base” despite securing a commanding victory in the Americas Grand Prix.
The Spaniard looked strong throughout the weekend at the Circuit of the Americas having qualified second in Saturday’s pole shootout, before he then backed this up with a first podium finish running Honda machinery in the subsequent sprint race as he finished as runner-up to reigning MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Rins continued his impressive form on Sunday after piling the pressure on Bagnaia across the full-length Americas GP until the factory Ducati rider crashed out at Turn 2 just prior to mid-distance, gifting the Spaniard a near two-second advantage over Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo.
He continued to control his gap expertly across the remaining laps – even as a charging Luca Marini moved into the runners-up spot on his Ducati – to ultimately take the chequered flag 3.4 seconds to the good, securing his debut win riding a Honda in only his third weekend on the bike, as well as his LCR team’s first in five years.
Describing his somewhat unexpected success as “amazing”, Rins feels his strong early form at LCR is a good omen for the future due to him and the Italian operation still “creating our base.”
“This is amazing, we did a great race and were quite fast right from the beginning,” explained Rins to BT Sport following the Americas GP.
“We are still creating our base, so the race was amazing.
“I’m looking forward to what’s next, this is a great result for all the team, they have been waiting for this and it’s the 100th podium for LCR, so they really deserve it.
“When I arrived to LCR I have kept working in the same way as I did in my old team, so maybe I’ve brought some experience from the past, either from the bike or the way of working I’m not really sure but it’s working.”
The six-time premier class race victor – who has now won three of the last six MotoGP encounters on two different machines – felt his tyre management made the difference on race day, conceding that he hadn’t done a good enough job in this regard during the sprint contest.
“The rhythm was high from the start and we were riding so fast, I was trying to follow Pecco (Bagnaia) but he was faster than me in the third and fourth sectors, but I was risking a lot in the first and second splits to reduce the gap,” continued Rins.
“Honestly after yesterday (sprint race) I was thinking to just ride a bit slower, yesterday the tyres were destroyed with that pace we did.
“But today we did the same pace, so I’m quite impressed because my management of the throttle and the tyres was quite nice.”
Keyword: Rins: ‘We are still creating our base’