Yamaha MotoGP rider admits “we just need to survive” as last 1,000cc races near

After a rough first half of the 2026 MotoGP season, Alex Rins’ optimism is low ahead of the second half, feeling he and Yamaha “need to survive”.

Rins scored his best result of the season and a first top-10 of 2026 at the end of June in the Netherlands, but his season so far has yielded just 21 points from 11 grands prix and Sprints. 

Despite being the second-placed Yamaha in the standings, ahead of Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlioglu, by the standards of a factory rider and former premier class race winner it has been a poor season, and he is pessimistic about the chances of the YZR-M1 improving much between now and the end of the 1,000cc era – and indeed Rins’ time at Yamaha – in late November.

“We just need to survive,” said Alex Rins, speaking after the German Grand Prix and looking to the second half of the 2026 MotoGP season with Yamaha.

“Let's see if they bring something. 

“We will put some cans of oil close to the bike, to see if we can eat a bit of oil and can earn this horsepower!

“But for the moment we need to work.”

Rins’ race in Germany was one of few regrets despite the 14th-place finish. But he said afterwards that he would have rather pushed more in the middle of the race, since by trying to conserve his tyres he only lost time that he could not regain at the end.

“So, it is tough for me to explain, to have some comments about today's race,” the Monster Energy Yamaha rider said.

“We were expecting the problems we had. 

“The only thing that I would like to [do], if we start again, I will try to push that middle part of the race to stay with Morbidelli; because I was taking a lot of care on the tyres, thinking [about] the end of the race, that in the end of the race my tyres were fucked also, but at least I was able to stay there with him. Nothing to say.”