Rins: 'Marquez has no respect for other riders'

During qualifying at Brno, cameras picked up the end of a tense tussle between MotoGP champion Marc Marquez and Suzuki's Alex Rins.

The pair were caught putting some close passes on each other before pulling into pit lane, where they continued to 'duel' - until Marquez reached out with his arm to put some space between their machines.

Marquez then over swapped to slick tyres and romped to pole position on the drying track, with Rins claiming sixth on the grid.

"It's a tricky thing because for sure [Marc] is now one step in front of everybody. He put the slick tyres and he was super-fast. But I think he has no respect for the other riders. He is riding on his way," said Rins.

"I will explain to you what happened: On Corner 5, he went a little bit wide and behind him was Miller and me. When he went wide, he looked back and saw Jack and me. Jack passed him, but then he went back onto the line and sincerely he disturbed me. I was pushing. I was not super-fast, but I was pushing.

"So on the next left corner I tried to do my line. He opened a little a bit the door and I go in. I touched him, but I think it's his fault; if he is riding slow he needs to open the door and that's it.

"But anyway, then on the last corner he braked super-hard to overtake me [back]. Then when we were coming into the box I was in front of him and I go straight and he has no space to go by my side. If I was him, I would cut the gas…"

Marquez said he hadn’t seen Rins behind Miller and played down the encounter.

“I ran wide at Turn 5 and Jack overtook me because I checked behind and I only saw him, so I tried to follow Jack because I know he had good pace. Then I went a bit too wide and there was a small space, but enough and [Rins] ran into me…" said the Repsol Honda star.

“The funny thing was when we entered the box and the tyre wall was there [in front of me] and I didn’t have the space [to get through] because he was going that way. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but for me it wasn’t important. I lose zero time on these sort of things.”

Told Rins had said he had no respect for other riders, Marquez responded: “Of course I don’t agree with this, it is his opinion."

"It's not the first time," Rins had explained earlier. "Everybody knows Marquez and everybody knows that he has an incredible talent, but also what happened in FP1 with Vinales was more-or-less the same.

"Marc loves to play this game and try to get in the head of other riders. But in my case I'm really calm. I just tell the truth and that's it."

Asked if he thought he needed to try and get into Marquez's head, Rins responded: "No, I don't think so…. For sure if I'm fighting for the world championship with him I will try to do something, but he's 80 points in front of me - maybe he's scared, I don't know!"

Austin winner Rins, who has fallen in the last two races, is fourth in the world championship.

Update: In comments to the Spanish media, Rins raised Marquez's previous vision problems after his 2011 Sepang Moto2 accident, for which he later apologised: