The Suzuki star had an excellent chance of adding to his memorable 2019 Silverstone win as he continued at the head of the field up to and past the midway stage of the 20 laps.
But despite running the hardest rear tire compound, Rins began to suffer unexpected grip issues and couldn’t hide his disappointment after slipping all the way back to seventh place (albeit just +3.021s) at the finish.
“I was destroyed,” admitted a downbeat Rins. “Not because of the [physical effort] on my body, but because I gave it my maximum today.
“When I was in P1, I was riding so smooth, controlling the throttle and the rear slide, but at a certain point in the race I was struggling a lot to keep the rear traction.
“I don’t know why, we need to check with Michelin, because it wasn’t normal. I was suffering a lot to keep a 2’00 lap time. In the last 5 or 6 laps, I was riding in 2’01.”
“It was frustrating because I did a really good start,” the Spaniard added. “When I was up there in third, then second, I said to myself, ‘wow Alex, you’re riding so smooth!’ Then I overtook Pecco for first… but after the tyre [performance] went down so fast, and I was a little bit in a panic, because I was struggling to hold the position.
“Usually, we are the ones that take care of the tire a lot and in the race we have a good margin. But I don’t know what happened.
“When Miller overtook me [for second], I was already struggling to follow him. And then lap by lap, it was even worse until the end.”
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Team manager Livio Suppo also thought Rins was on course for Suzuki’s first win since 2020, until the grip issue struck.
“When he was leading, we really thought he’d be able to win, because he looked very comfortable and smooth,” Suppo said. “Unfortunately, he then started to lose grip on the rear tyre.
“This is something we have to analyze with Michelin – we have seen the data but we need to understand why this happened. “
Rins’ team-mate Joan Mir didn’t even reach the checkered flag, crashing out of seventh place in the closing stages after losing the front.
“The temperatures were higher than the previous days and maybe being behind the group for a lot of laps meant I overheated the front more than I wanted,” he said. “I think the crash was due to this problem.
“I was trying to manage and take a bit of fresh air, but it was difficult. Especially because I was there in the group.
“I think that we could have gone forward a bit in the next laps, because I was feeling fine, but we’ll never know.”
Mir, yet to confirm his future but expected to join Repsol Honda, has now dropped to twelve in the world championship, with future LCR Honda rider Rins in eight.
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