Alex Rins reveals Yamaha apology over 2024 MotoGP bike issue

Alex Rns has revealed that after the Solidarity Grand Prix Yamaha “apologised” to him for not improving braking struggles he battled throughout the 2024 MotoGP season.

The six-time grand prix winner endured a difficult first year on the Yamaha, in which he scored just 31 points down in 18th in the standings.

The biggest issue Rins faced on the M1 was a lack of rear contact while braking, which is a problem he says Yamaha was never able to fix.

After what he described as “if not the worst, one of the worst races of my life” at Barcelona in the Solidarity GP, he says Yamaha management apologised for not fixing this problem for him.

“If I have to choose one, Yamaha needs to improve - for me - the braking and the entry,” he replied when asked after the post-season test what area he needs Yamaha to make a step in for 2025.

“They weren’t able to give me a bike this year to be competitive in this area.

“I was struggling during all the races to have the rear contact and in the end when you don’t have rear contact you don’t stop the bike on braking side, it doesn’t matter the rest because you will go wide, or if I was able to stop the bike I overheated the front tyre and I broke the front tyre.

“After the race, I met with Max [Bartolini] and Massimo [Meregalli], I talk deeply with them and they apologised.

“So, I’m quite calm that they are working on this, but also we need to improve the power of the engine, the electronics also.”

Yamaha had a busy test day on the Tuesday at Barcelona, with both factory riders having three M1s in their garages.

Among the items to try, Yamaha had a new engine and chassis to test, as well as some new set-up ideas.

Rins was pleased with the new chassis, but feels like he is “not ready to have this power” from the new engine as it doesn’t match with his riding style.

“In set-up we did small steps, not all as I wanted, but after the race, talking with the engineers, they say that with the things that we are going to test it will not be a big change - it will not be zero to 100, it will maybe be five, 10% change,” he added.

“I tried something that I didn’t try during the GP weekend on set-up that makes my life a little bit easier riding the bike.

“Apart from that, Yamaha brought some new stuff, like a new chassis, new engine, and I felt really good with this new chassis.

“I was able to hold more speed in the middle of the corner. I was expecting the braking side to be better, but it was a very small improvement.

“And regarding the engine, it’s true that it’s more powerful on the straight, exiting from the corners, but at least with my riding style we are not ready to have this power.

“The bike was quite aggressive, spinning a lot, so we need to adjust the electronics for this engine.

“We didn’t work so much on the electronics, because we didn’t have enough time. We focused on the new engine, the new chassis, a little bit of set-up.

“For me, we were missing another engine to test with a different configuration inside. Maybe this was the fifth or sixth new engine I’ve tested.”