{"id":589046,"date":"2026-04-06T12:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589046\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T12:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T12:01:08","slug":"what-the-hell-am-i-doing-here-yamaha-motogp-struggles-getting-to-one-rider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/589046\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat the hell am I doing here?\u201d: Yamaha MotoGP struggles getting to one rider"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Rins admits he felt \u201cuseless\u201d on his Yamaha during the US Grand Prix weekend, leading to the MotoGP race winner to question \u201cwhat the hell am I doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/monster-energy-yamaha-motogp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yamaha<\/a> is in the middle of a rebuild as it evolves its new V4 project at the start of the 2026 MotoGP season.<\/p>\n<p>But the Japanese brand is already in crisis, with leading rider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/911998\/fabio-quartararo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fabio Quartararo<\/a> deciding pre-season to leave for Honda next year, while after three rounds it has just nine points in the constructors\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n<p>The recent US Grand Prix continued Yamaha\u2019s troubles, as all four riders occupied the final four places in the classification.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Rins qualified last at COTA and finished last in the grand prix, 38.701s from the win but also over 10 seconds from the next Yamaha in front of him, which was team-mate Quartararo.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Cutting a dejected figure after the grand prix, Rins spoke of the technical issues he battled throughout the US Grand Prix weekend.<\/p>\n<p>But these issues, coupled with the M1\u2019s poor form, left his motivation in tatters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeeing all four Yamahas in the back of the pack isn\u2019t great,\u201d he said at COTA, as reported by GPOne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not that I was exactly surprised, but I said to myself, \u2018Wow, we\u2019re all here?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUp until the eighth lap, the bike wouldn\u2019t respond when I opened the throttle coming out of Turns 1 and 11.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was fine on some laps; on others, I felt this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cDuring my second run in pre-qualifying, the bike wasn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was going wide at every corner. I couldn\u2019t turn, change direction, or do anything, and I felt useless on the bike.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said to myself, \u2018What the hell am I doing here?\u2019 There are moments when I\u2019m not enjoying myself, and I ended up asking myself, \u2018What are we doing?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Rins\u2019 comments come after team-mate Quartararo told French television at COTA that Yamaha doesn\u2019t know how to fix any of the problems it has with the V4 M1.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>During the Thai Grand Prix weekend, after the brand pulled its riders from race day media duties, Yamaha boss Paolo Pavesio said that the marque has a \u201cmountain to climb\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Rins admits he felt \u201cuseless\u201d on his Yamaha during the US Grand Prix weekend, leading to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[40457,64,63,10671,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-589046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-alex-rins","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-monster-energy-yamaha-motogp","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}