Ecstar Suzuki's Alex Rins lost another hatful of points to title rivals yesterday as he crashed out of the Le Mans MotoGP and finds himself more than two race wins adrift of series leader Fabio Quartararo.

Rins went down at the notorious turn three before re-mounting but threw it away again which made four crashes in three races for the Spaniard - a far cry from the consistency that brought him to third in the 2020 title stakes.

“It’s true that I’m crashing a lot this season, I’m taking all the crashes that the last two years we don’t make," said Rins, speaking at the track.

“I don’t know how to answer because I’m feeling good. I’m working hard at home with all my staff. This sometimes happens, I don’t know.

“We improved the bike a lot. I need to say sorry to the team because this year is the year that I’m feeling stronger on the bike, I do whatever I want – except in qualifying.

“But I do whatever I want here in Le Mans. We struggled a lot and in the dry conditions we were so fast from the beginning. We were out of Q2 for nothing, we finished 11th by just putting one tyre in the beginning.

“We did a big improvement on the bike, just we are doing stupid mistakes. Today we did the impossible. We passed the first lap fourth, or fifth, I recovered 10 positions on the first lap.

“I entered the box and changed the bike so fast I recovered one position, then a stupid crash again.”