As the pinnacle of motorcycling, MotoGP is in constant evolution, with new technologies and solutions seen on bikes every year – at a development pace that has left current bikes very different from those that competed just a few years ago.
Álex Rins has been in the premier class for seven years – he debuted in 2017 – and he keenly feels this difference. In the podcast Vlogs de coches, the current Monster Energy Yamaha rider commented: ‘In today’s MotoGP, there is a big difference compared to when I started in 2017. Besides 2017, which was my debut year – in 2018, 2019 – those were bikes where you had to manage the tyres a lot to be able to reach the end of the race’.
The Spaniard later recalled: ‘I remember, for example, some races with [Andrea] Dovi where Dovi, [Marc] Márquez, Valentino [Rossi], I was there… and Dovi would ride very slowly to save the tyre until the end. At that time, with Suzuki, we knew how to manage the tyres very well’.
According to Rins, despite still needing to manage tyres, it’s now possible to be faster from the beginning to the end of the race: ‘Now obviously there is also management, but with the electronics so developed, we can start much faster and finish at this level, making faster laps in the final laps’.