Alex Rins “had same problem as Fabio” in British MotoGP, “Super scary with Pecco ”

Alex Rins revealed that he suffered the same ride-height failure that cruelly sunk Monster Yamaha team-mate Fabio Quartararo’s victory hopes in Sunday’s British MotoGP.

The Frenchman was distraught after being forced out of a 4.5s lead over Marco Bezzecchi when the rear of his M1 refused to rise back to its normal position with seven laps to go.

Rins said he experienced the same issue on the very final lap, costing him several places, but he was able to nurse his bike home in 15th. 

That became 14th after a post-race position penalty for Brad Binder, then 13th after Luca Marini's tyre pressure penalty.

“I had the same problem as Fabio,” Rins said on Sunday evening. “In the last lap mine was broken.

“From the middle until the end of the race at corner 15 I was struggling [with it]. I was generating a lot of pressure on the front [brake] to disengage it.

“Let's say I was lucky that it happened on the last lap.

“For sure, it’s a different feeling to Fabio who was leading the race by five seconds and was able to win easily.

“For me it just happened on the last lap, in the last three corners and I lost positions to Fernandez and Binder.

“But they need to check because both bikes, the same race, rear device broken.”

Rins said the problem had happened in the past but this was the first time it had occurred in 2025.

“It's really strange. Both riders at the same race.”

The Spaniard denied there had been any changes to the ride-height system this weekend and that it’s impossible for the rider to manually restore the normal ride height on the bike.

“It just loses the oil and then stays down,” he said.

“It was super scary with Pecco”

While Quartararo surged into the early lead from pole position, Rins spent the early stages struggling for grip - then had to dodge a fallen Francesco Bagnaia on lap 4.

“I did a really good start but then it was frustrating, because it was super difficult for me to warm the rear tyre,” he explained.

“We need to understand why because Miller, Fabio, they have they have same machines as me, same Yamaha and they are able to ride faster than me in the beginning.

“So it's not the first race this has happened, then from the middle until the end of the race, I'm able to ride in the same lap times as them.

“But the first laps it’s impossible to put temperature on the rear tyre. I almost highsided twice in corner nine in different laps and lost many positions there.

“Also it was super scary with Pecco because when he crashed, I almost hit him in the upper body, so also there I lose positions. It was quite scary.”

Despite Monster Yamaha leaving Silverstone with just a single Sunday point, Rins remains “Positive. Yamaha is working so hard. In my case, we just need  understand the problems that we suffer in the first part of the races.

“But after that, the lap times are quite similar and we did an improvement compared last year. So this is the good thing.”