Perhaps it will serve to better understand the difficult situation that Honda has been going through for a long time on a technical level, the grotesque that Álex Rins is experiencing as a pilot of the golden wing… Despite being the only rider capable of winning a race this season to date, and with a direct contract with HRC, not with his team, LCR Honda Castrol, the Catalan will not have the new Kalex chassis for the Italian GP with the told from Jerez by Repsol Honda officials, Marc Márquez and Joan Mir. A complete disregard for the former Suzuki driver, the factory with which he won two of the last three races last year.
He has already won this course in Austin with Honda, something that should help him gain more weight in his current factory, but he doesn’t even know when he will be able to mount that Kalex chassis on his RC213V that has received the blessings of Márquez and Mir. “What I can say is that we have the bike we have and that we have to give our best with this setup. You have to ask Honda if they are going to give me or not they are going to give me the Kalex chassis ”, He began by saying in the Mugello press room to later elaborate further: “We had a meeting with Lucio (Cecchinello) and Alberto (Puig) at Le Mans to see when they would bring it, when they would give it to me to test, what Honda’s intentions were. . And Alberto at first told me that maybe on Saturday, then he told me that he wouldn’t have the chance to try it there, and that he would arrive. Today when I arrived I asked my team: “Do we have Kalex chassis to test?” And they told me: “No, no, he won’t be here.” So, that’s where the thing ended. Keep insisting, keep asking… It’s simple: either it’s yes or it’s no. Is not? Well, to try to give the maximum with what I have, find a good compromise for this circuit, which is not easy, and we will see what we are capable of doing”.
His resigned speech could be confused with conformism, but it is not: “Of course I do want it, but in the end it is not a matter of getting angry or not. In these last two Grands Prix, four and five weeks ago, the stress that I experienced on a mental and physical level was very great. In the end you are struggling, you see that you have potential, that you can give much more on the track, but you see yourself limited because you see that you are not improving, that you are slow. It was hard, but in the end it is what we have. We cannot focus and focus on a simple fact. I’ll say it again, Mugello is a track that I like, it’s a fast track, with high-speed corners. So we’ll see.”
When talking about stress, Rins is asked if he works with a psychologist, and he answers like this: “For years, since 2017. It is not that when you have a problem he calls you and you solve it. In the end, he is one more person on my personal team, and I am in constant contact with this person and the truth is that he helps me. He has done it at many times in my career. I can’t imagine not having it, it’s like leaving my coach. He is a key piece. And now I feel good, I’m ready. When you have a lot of stress, in each person it manifests itself in one way or another. It is general stress, from wanting to go faster and not being able to, from the situation”.
And to finish off the issue of the Kalex chassis again, he assures that he left Le Mans with the hope of finding it in his box when he arrived at Mugello: “Yes, it is true that after France in my head was the fact that there were three weeks ahead, and that I believed they would reach Mugello. But I have arrived here and they have not given me the possibility. Nor have I spoken with Honda, nor with Lucio. I had a meeting with my technician and that’s it. He told me that he didn’t and I’m not going to think about it anymore. At first he told me not until further notice. ‘You are grounded until further notice.’ It is not a joke. In principle they want to focus on me doing these three races with the bike I have. It is what he has told me ”.