Rins: I was waiting to see if Marquez made any mistakes

Alex Rins says having lost a gap to Marc Marquez by the time he reached second place he could only wait for a mistake like the one which handed him his maiden MotoGP victory last time out as he accepts his qualifying performances must improve.

The Suzuki rider has moved to second spot in the championship, just one point behind Marquez, thanks to second place at the Spanish MotoGP as he was unable to prevent the Repsol Honda rider from dominating at the front.

Rins, who started from the back of the third row in ninth place, produced an impressive charge up through the field and despite reaching second place by the end of Lap 13 he accepted he had already lost too much time to Marquez who was out in front.

The Spaniard conceded he was hoping for the same mistake which saw Marquez crash out of a comfortable lead at the Americas MotoGP but without a repeat show of luck he had to settle for the runner-up spot.

“We did an incredible race starting on the third row,” Rins said. “Before the start all the team and I knew the rhythm was the same as Marc more or less and in the race more or less he goes one step down.

“I was quite comfortable the unique thing was I needed to try and overtake very fast and I lost a lot of time with Dovizioso. The Ducati bike brakes hard and accelerates really hard.

“Anyway, step by step I overtook riders and did a lot of laps at the front waiting to see if he made any mistakes but anyway second position was incredible for us.”

Hoping to improve his overall performance at the upcoming races, Rins concedes he must find qualifying gains but isn’t sure whether it is from his own riding style or his Suzuki bike.

Rins qualified almost half a second slower than pole-sitter Fabio Quartararo on the Petronas Yamaha while he was still over a third of a second off Marquez who lined up in third place on the grid.

“We need to work harder in qualifying as I would like to start better but it is hard,” he said. “This is MotoGP and we try to do a very fast lap but it is hard.

“We need to improve the braking area so maybe it is one thing we need to work for and maybe in qualifying it will improve that thing to make it come easier. But the problem, exactly, I don’t know, I tried and tried and put the bike on the limit but I don’t know what is the problem.”

Rins’s best qualifying result so far this season has been seventh place, which came at the Americas MotoGP where he won the race, while he has never starred over a single lap in the premier class with his last pole position coming during his final Moto2 campaign in 2016 at Circuit of the Americas.