“We’re creating more ambitious goals with every step”

At Silverstone, we witnessed a stunner. Victory number two of the season – and his MotoGP™ career – came Alex Rins’ (Team Suzuki Ecstar) way, pushing the Spaniard closer to the top three in the overall standings and it was a result that notched up podium number three of the season.

Suzuki have made yet another step forward in 2019. Podiums came their way in 2018, but no wins. Rins, now in his third season in the premier class, has finished inside the top five eight times in 12 races – and if it wasn’t for crashes at Assen and the Sachsenring, that looked set to be 10 in 12.

So, fresh from the British GP jubilation, Team Suzuki Ecstar had a chat with their Team Manager Davide Brivio about hunger, objectives and consistency.

“Up to now in 2019 we’ve been competitive for several races; our goal last year was to move towards the front of the pack during the first six races, and I would say that from mid-season onwards we achieved that with great regularity,” explains Brivio.

“But this year we have taken off from where we left off at the end of last season, and we raised the bar, giving us the objective of winning at least one race. So far we have won two and I would say that it’s because of the great consistency we have. There were steps made with the bike in the first place, and then we improved and refined many technical aspects, and there was also a lot of growth from Rins, who has matured rapidly and is now in his third season in MotoGP. In my opinion he has become a top rider in every way, especially as he is able to fight well at every race.

“I think Suzuki’s commitment to MotoGP is important and I think it’s important to keep doing well. On the one hand, as they say ‘the appetite comes with eating’, because when you have not won a race you want to win one, then when you have won one you want to win two, now we have won two and we would like to continue!

“On the other hand it obviously becomes more and more difficult to excel, because staying at a high level is always more complicated. In a certain way we’ve brought this on ourselves – we’re getting ourselves into trouble by ourselves, because we’re creating even more ambitious goals with every step.”