After passing and beating Valentino Rossi on the way to his maiden MotoGP win in Austin, Alex Rins has now beaten Marc Marquez in a final corner scrap at Silverstone.
Despite not looking to have the race-winning pace, Alex Rins put his Suzuki Ecstar machine in the perfect place to pip Repsol Honda‘s Marc Marquez by 0.013s in a hair raising finish at a sunny Silverstone circuit.
Rins was always optimistic of a podium finish at the British Circuit but admitted that he and his Suzuki team had found the extra feeling they needed to battle for the win.
At the venue where Maverick Vinales took his debut MotoGP win, and Suzuki’s first since Chris Vermeulen at Le Mans in 2007, Rins got the start he needed to battle with Marquez, passing Valentino Rossi on the second lap and hooked his Suzuki GSX-RR onto the back of the Repsol Honda.
Marquez however, new Rins was behind and had had enough of showing Rins around the 3.6-mile long circuit, allowing Rins to pass the Spaniard. However, Rins new he was stronger in sector four and allowed the MotoGP championship leader back passed at the end of the Hangar straight.
Rins then followed Marquez for the remainder of the race, but a mistake on the penultimate lap left Rins to far back to perform a pass in the first half of the final lap.
Marquez was weary of where Rins was stronger and defended his line into Brooklands but a small mistake from Marquez at Luffield gave Rins the advantage around the outside and to outdrive Marquez to the line, switching his line at Woodcote and driving passed the Honda to win the race.
Speaking in the post-race press conference after his second MotoGP win, Rins said: “We started to play a little bit. Marc closed the throttle and I was riding one lap in front of him, but very quickly I let him past because he was faster than me and I didn’t want to show my weak points“
Rins also tried the pass on Marquez at the start of the penultimate lap, pulling off a brave move around the outside of Marquez at the final corner, after mistakenly reading his pit board wrong – thinking it was the final lap. “I did a very big mistake two laps to the end. I thought it was the last lap and tried to overtake him on the outside,” said Rins. “When I saw him going full gas [after the finish line] I said, ‘Alex, one lap remaining…’.”
“I think the two victories, Texas and this one, were difficult for sure. Sincerely, I didn’t think I could win this race because Marc and Fabio had a little more potential than us. But I was feeling very comfortable behind Marc, riding in a good way and then I just had one chance to win on the last corner. This race is so important for me, but more for Suzuki. They were working very hard. I was close during a lot of races after Texas, but winning this race is unbelievable,” he concluded.
The British Grand Prix was the closest finish to a MotoGP race since Toni Elias pipped Valentino Rossi to glory by just 0.001s at Estoril 2006.
Rins will now aim for top five results for the rest of the season to confirm his top-three finish in the MotoGP 2019 Championship.