He left it late but Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar) got himself into an all-important top 10 position at the end of FP2 as he set the sixth fastest time of the day on Friday at the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas.
This shows he and Suzuki have made steps forward regarding their one-lap pace, a problem that arose to the fore in Argentina as Rins qualified down in P16.
“We improve. We did revision and we improve in this area,” began the Spaniard, who looks like he’s earned an automatic Q2 place with wet weather forecast for FP3 on Saturday. “We are on the good position for tomorrow. It looks like it will be rain in FP3 so we need to also test in these conditions but other than that we had a good performance. We tried this afternoon something different with the tyres. It was good with the test with the hard on the front, but we need to continue working. For sure on one lap we improved a lot but we’ll see in qualifying.
“I feel good, I feel strong. This morning I was riding good, in the end, missing something in the last minutes but anyway this afternoon we ride fast so I feel strong.”
Time will tell if a good qualifying position is on the cards for Rins, who has a best grid position of 10th so far this season, with his only front row start coming in last season’s Valencia GP.