Rins finished 13th in Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix, six places behind team-mate Quartararo, in what was his second competitive weekend for Yamaha following his off-season switch from LCR Honda.
Although this was a massive improvement from his point-less 16th-place result in the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix, where the Yamaha package was quite uncompetitive, the Spaniard felt he encountered the same issues in Portimao that plagued him at Losail.
Having relied on Quartararo’s set-up as a base line so far, the 28-year-old feels he now needs to take a different direction in order to get a better grasp of the 2024-spec M1.
“It was a hard race,” he said after scoring his first points with Yamaha. “These two races I did, Qatar and Portimao, were not the way that I was expecting.
“We need to work a little bit more on our own. We did small changes on the bike but focusing on the set-up that Fabio is using, more or less.
Alex Rins, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“After this race I realised that I need to do something different on the bike because I have similar problems as the race in Qatar.
“I was struggling a lot with the front, after releasing brakes, going on throttle. I am struggling to turn, I cannot do [lean] angle.”
He added: “It’s more set-up than my position on the bike. In the middle of the race I tried to change my riding style on the bike to see if I was able to lock more the front, but it was not enough.
“So looks like we need more weight on the front to make the bike turn.”
Yamaha organised a private test at Portimao on Monday, taking advantage of the new concessions system introduced in 2024 to close the gap between Japanese and European marques in the championship.
However, due to dirty track conditions, not much useful running was able to take place.