Aragon Grand Prix race winner Alex Rins reckons a late championship charge could be on the cards having closed to within 36 point of his series leading team-mate Joan Mir.
Suzuki’s Rins recovered supremely from his tenth place starting spot to snatch away the lead from Maverick Vinales at around a thirds distance, before holding off a closing Alex Marquez in the latter stages of the contest to secure his first win since last year’s British GP.
Fellow GSX-RR pilot Mir meanwhile moved into the championship lead after finishing third as Fabio Quartararo failed to score, but despite conceding it would be “difficult” to catch his team-mate Rins insisted he would give his “maximum” due to having “no pressure” following his difficult start to the 2020 season.
“We will try to take it (championship) race by race, if I get the title this year it will be amazing, though it will be difficult as Joan (Mir) is riding so strongly and consistently at the moment,” said Rins post-race.
“I’ve had a lot of crashes and no-scores so far, and I struggled a lot with my (shoulder) injury also, but I will give my maximum because I have no pressure, but I also have an eye on getting ready for next year also.”
Explaining how he managed to secure his third career premier class success, Rins stated that staying “cool” in the opening laps helped him to make up the positions necessary to get himself in a position to challenge the leading contenders.
“After this long and unlucky year we finally get this victory here in Aragon, it was unbelievable to get the win here as this was a place I really wanted to win at,” continued Rins.
“We are doing a really good job, Joan (Mir) me and the team are grabbing a lot of podiums this season so this means the bike is competitive and we are doing a good job with it.
“It was not easy, on the grid I was really calm and I was thinking maybe I was too calm as I had to make up a lot of positions, but in the end I managed to remain cool and made a good start and was strong in the opening laps.
“I knew that Mir was on my back in the last laps trying to overtake me, but with six laps left I saw Alex’s (Marquez) pit board that said 0.4 to Mir, so I thought ‘oh no another Marquez’, so it was difficult to not make mistakes but luckily we got the win.”
Rins failed to capture a podium position until the Catalan GP last month following a tough start to his fourth MotoGP campaign, the Spaniard picking up a nasty shoulder injury at the season opening Spanish GP at Jerez which stunted his early progress.
A potential victory in the Austrian GP went begging after Rins crashed while trying to snatch the lead away from eventual winner Andrea Dovizioso, while he also retired from the French GP last weekend while running second behind Danilo Petrucci after going down once again.
