Rins: I would like to stay here

Alex Rins has stated his preference to continue with Suzuki beyond 2018 while revealing he will begin discussions with the factory about extending his current contract after the second MotoGP race of the year in Argentina.

The 22-year old Spaniard showed great promise across the winter months, regularly outperforming more experienced team-mate Andrea Iannone in the preseason tests, before he was challenging the leading riders in the opening round of the year in Qatar.

“We will start the discussions after this GP,” said Rins in Argentina. “The important thing is that I am feeling like I’m in a family with all the team. We will see what happens finally but I would like to stay here.”

Suzuki has publicly said it would be keen to retain the services of Rins, with team manager Davide Brivio telling Crash.net in Qatar “clearly” that he wanted to continue the project with the ex-Moto2 and Moto3 runner-up.

“We started to talk to our riders,” said Brivio. “We didn’t sign anything yet so we are in discussion. We also want to see how the start of the season goes. I mean, I can tell you clearly we would like to continue the project with Alex Rins. We are looking to renew with Alex.”

Brivio’s words appeared less clear on Rins’ team-mate Iannone. “We are discussing with him,” said the Italian. “Also with Andrea we started to talk. We want to see maybe the first races. We are anyway discussing.”

Turning his attention to the Grand Prix of Argentina, Rins said he has travelled to the southern hemisphere fully motivated after a competitive – albeit disappointing – showing at race one.

“I’m motivated because we arrive with good feelings, apart from the crash [in race one],” he said. “The weekend was almost perfect in Qatar. For sure this track is good for me and also very good for Suzuki. We don’t have excuses. We need to ride fast! I need to do my best, trying to enjoy my best.

“We analysed [the first race] well. I think it was completely my mistake. The start was not so good and I was a bit nervous behind Petrucci, because it was difficult to overtake him. Finally when I overtook him I was trying to hold the position. I entered the second corner a little close. Automatically with a bit more speed and the front tyre closed.

“Anyway, if I held the position behind Petrucci I’d have finished sixth or seventh and it would have been fine. I was thinking that I had more rhythm to be closer to the front so I tried.”

Assessing Suzuki’s 2018 package as a whole, he added, “We improved a lot. We rode all the bikes more or less. We have a very competitive bike. Always we are improving. I saw small things from the other bikes.

“For example I was riding behind Pedrosa and I saw that their traction was a little better than ours. All these comments are good for our team. Improving as a rider, I learned a lot riding with the fast guys.”