Alex Rins jokes “sharing is caring” after Yamaha request at Buriram MotoGP test

Alex Rins revealed he handed one of his Yamaha V4 machines to team-mate Fabio Quartararo for the final day of MotoGP pre-season testing at Buriram, joking that “sharing is caring”.

Rins rode for 29 laps in the morning, then 25 more in the afternoon, finishing the test just 20th on the combined timesheets (+1.207s).

“A difficult day to manage with only one bike,” Rins said on Sunday evening.

“We were just trying some settings, we couldn't do many laps, it was only one bike. But overall we were able to do a sprint race simulation, that was really far from our competitors. But we were able to hold some 30 highs.

“The last part of the test I tried to put a new tyre to do a time attack, I improved a little bit, but the mileage on the engine was a little bit high, so I felt a bit this [decrease] of power.”

“Sharing is caring!”

Initially, it was assumed that a technical issue had sidelined his second bike. Instead, Rins confirmed the request came from Yamaha management.

 “I gave it to Fabio, my other bike… I just had one bike. I gave my second bike to Fabio.”

The Spaniard declined to go into detail but admitted it had been discussed the previous evening.

“Yeah, yesterday, before dinner. They took me and said something, if I was agreed or not. I said to them, what do you want me to do? I need to give my bike to him. We need to keep working on this project. We need to be generous.”

Rins added with a smile: “Sharing is caring, no?!”

Quartararo also confirmed he was restricted to a single machine on the final day, suggesting both of the Frenchman’s initial M1s were out of action.

“Today, the mileage of engines were over, so we had only one bike,” Quartararo said. “For what we needed to do today it was enough, because actually it was more about the setting than anything that I wanted to focus more on.

“I still haven't really found a direction. I think, like I said, the first maybe half of the year for us will be to figure out how it's going and trying to improve our bike.”

Rins was tight-lipped on the potential of the new V4 in its full-time debut at this weekend’s season-opening Thai Grand Prix.

“You need to ask our team manager and our bosses,” he replied.

Told that Yamaha management had said it would be a difficult start, but then get better as the season progresses, Rins added:

“For sure, a rider is never prepared to be in the last positions. This is the truth.

“If they say that it's going to be tough, they didn't lie to you.”

Nevertheless, the V4 was close to matching the best lap time at last year’s test by the former Inline machine, with leading riders Jack Miller and Quartararo 1.0s behind the best 2026 lap by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi.

Quartararo and Rins also lost an average of 0.9-1.0s per lap compared to the best 2026 Sprint simulation, by Trackhouse Aprilia’s Ai Ogura.

That matches the deficit for the Inline bike in last year’s Thai Sprint race, which Quartararo finished in seventh place, 13-seconds adrift after 13 laps.

However, Quartararo warned that the Sprint simulation for the previous Inline bike had been much faster in last year’s test, before the Pirelli Moto2 and Moto3 rubber reduced grip during the grand prix weekend.

“We are still seven, eight-tenths slower than last year's race simulation in the test,” said the 2021 world champion.

Quartararo’s frustration had boiled over on the opening day of the test with an angry gesture to his M1.

“Yesterday I arrived at too much, the level of frustration. Because I want to be fast, to see myself competitive, but I see that we are really far from that,” he reflected.

“So I don't want to burn myself mentally, I just want to make my job and be more calm and try to manage what we can do, because to be pushing at 100% of the time, mentally is difficult.”

Rins said he tries to “analyse” his frustration.

“I try to analyse my [anger] when I'm riding. This is a characteristic that I was working for a long time, that when the bike doesn't work, or when I couldn't make a good lap time, on the in-box lap, I try to analyse all this frustration to arrive in the box in a better way.”

Opening practice for the Thai MotoGP takes place on Friday morning.