Rins: Aragon MotoGP win harder than Marquez Silverstone fight in 2019

Rins came from 10th on the grid to end the first lap in fourth in Sunday's 23-lap Aragon GP, before coming through to a lead he wouldn't lose on lap eight.

The Suzuki rider came under pressure first from his team-mate Joan Mir, before Honda's Alex Marquez chased him hard in the latter stages, but held on to claim his third premier class victory.

Rins took a breakthrough win in Texas last year after beating Rossi when Marquez crashed from a commanding lead, and pipped the latter by 0.013 seconds in a thrilling Silverstone battle last August.

However, Rins says his Aragon win was harder to achieve as it's "easy to make a mistake when you are leading".

"This was my first race that I win leading the race," MotoGP's eighth different winner in 2020 said.

"The last two wins I was fighting with Valentino, with Marc.

"But this one I think was a bit more difficult because it's easy to make a mistake when you are leading the race.

"I tried to maintain my calm and I was riding quite well.

"It was difficult because I was seeing on the pit board that Joan and Alex were coming really fast, but I tried to maintain my calm, tried to keep the tyres for the end of the race because racing with the soft rear is not to keep the tyre life constant.

"But we get it. This first position for me, Suzuki, we are doing a really good job, getting a lot of podiums.

"It means they have done a good job in the pre-season and for sure they wanted it."

Rins has endured a difficult campaign, having been plagued for a large part of it with the after-effects of a broken and dislocated arm during the Spanish GP weekend.

Team-mate Mir's form has largely been stronger, though Rins was on course for at least second at Le Mans and had just taken the lead in the Austrian GP when he crashed.

When asked by Autosport if his Aragon win proved a point to his doubters, Rins said: "Yes, for sure.

"As you said, we really struggled this year to get this position.

"I think I had the potential in a lot of races, but in the end the first position never came for mistakes, for crashes.

"Finally, it arrived. I'm so happy for this because it was not so easy, and for sure a lot of people told me that I need to be more calm because I had two crashes trying to overtake in Austria overtaking [Andrea] Dovizioso, and Le Mans in the wet.

"But I knew that I had this potential and also the bike to do this."

Having been a pre-season tip for the title by many following a strong testing period, Rins still has a shot at taking the crown as he is just 36 points behind new championship leader Mir.