Rins 'working in a good way'

Suzuki’s Alex Rins had a satisfactory opening day at Phillip Island in Australia as the young Spaniard finished up ninth quickest overall.

Rins posted his best lap 1m 29.918s, which left him 0.7s behind team-mate and Friday pacesetter Andrea Iannone.

The 22-year-old said he was content with the initial set-up of the GSX-RR, and he will now focus on improving his race pace on Saturday.

“Today was fine for us but for sure, conditions were a little bit difficult this morning. It is one of the most coldest tracks on the calendar but this morning it was a little bit more,” he said.

“We focused a lot on out plan of work and we worked really well. We tried a lot of tyres, we tried a little bit with the set-up, for the race, and I think it works in a good way.

“On a single lap it works good, but we need to improve because our potential for the race is better than just for a single lap. We are working better and going step by step, and we will arrive.”

Compared to 2017, the Suzuki has improved in a number of areas at Phillip Island, which Rins feels will enable him to be more competitive in Sunday’s race.

“I feel a little bit more power in general, we improve in all areas, a little bit on brakes, on acceleration, on the wheelie area; we are racing today without the winglets and it looks comfortable,” Rins said.

“It’s one of my favourite tracks and our plan for tomorrow is to try and improve a little bit the race pace. We will try the soft used and the hard used on the rear, to try and find the better set-up for the race. Yesterday was a little bit more windy than today, so we hope that it keeps like this.”