Ecstar Suzuki’s Alex Rins grabbed his best MotoGP results to date, bagging fourth place at Valencia and the team’s lack of a podium finish in 2017 means they get back technical concessions for another season.
Rins ended lap one in 13th but the young Spaniard set a very fast pace that allowed him to quickly recover positions and settled into sixth place on lap 24 before being handed another two places when the two works Ducatis went down within seconds of each other.
“We have been improving in each session and we qualified directly to Q2. In the qualifying I expected to get a better position, but otherwise it went well. We had a good pace in the warm-up and I was convinced that I could have a good race. At the start I made a mistake and lost positions, so I had to push from the first lap and try to recover. I think it's a good way to close the season. Now I'm thinking about the training on Tuesday to start working for next year,” said Rins.
Suzuki will now be regain the technical concessions lost last season after maverick Vinales’ success. The team will have a larger engine allocation and be allowed more in-season testing, the same as KTM and Aprilia.
