- twitter.com/Rins42
VIVA – The racer from Spain, Alex Rins won the Australian MotoGP last weekend, Sunday, October 16, 2022. This victory is a sweet farewell gift for the Suzuki Ecstar team which will leave the MotoGP world championship at the end of the 2022 season.
Suzuki had announced plans to withdraw from MotoGP in July, following a deal with promoter Dorna Sports.
Starting from P10 on the Phillip Island grid, Rins made a surprise run to the podium after seven laps and took turns leading the race several times with Jorge Martin, Marc Marc Marquez, and Francesco Bagnaia in the front group.
On lap 14, Alex Rins started to move forward and struggled to hold on as the 10 leading riders were separated by just 1.8 seconds.
Alex Rins felt confident of the speed of the GSX-RR around the corner and refused to give up despite retreating to P3 with three laps to go before performing two overtaking maneuvers to take him once again ahead of the race before the finish line and secure his fourth MotoGP career win.
Pembalap Suzuki Ecstar, Alex Rins
- AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim
“I’m very happy. During the race I felt pretty good, even this bike feels great,” Alex Rins said.
“I tried to keep the rear tire because I know the circuit is quite tough with the tire. But in the end, I was able to find good traction in the flowing corners so that allowed me to improve my position and feel strong until the end.”
“The whole team and everyone who has worked on this project deserved this win, and so did the fans, so I’m really happy to be able to celebrate one more win together before we part ways.” Alex Rins remarked.
Next season, Alex Rins will undergo a new adventure with the LCR Honda team as a replacement for Alex Marquez who moved to Gresini.
Meanwhile, the racer of Ducati, Francesco Bagnaia took over the top spot after finishing P3 in Australia when his main rival, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, crashed in the race.
Quartararo, who is now 14 points behind in second place, has a tough task to turn things around with two races remaining, at Sepang next week and Valencia on November 6.
The racer of Aprilia, Aleix Espargaro is also still in contention for the world title after finishing P9 in Australia and keeping his position in third place with a distance of 24 points from the summit, as reported from MotoGP's official site.
