It was just one weekend. And he accepts that. And that second-row qualifying was slightly dubious. And the actual race results still weren't very good.
But by the standards of everything that had happened in the preceding two and a half years, Alex Rins's Indonesian Grand Prix MotoGP weekend performance was not just excellent. It felt tangibly different. Something to believe in, to build on. Something with an actual foundation in Yamaha set-up improvements that seemed to suit him.
And he produced it just before going to one of his MotoGP strongholds for the next round. Rins's extremely hard-fought 2022 Phillip Island victory - with Marc Marquez's Honda and five Ducatis headed by eventual champion Pecco Bagnaia all over his tail - kicked off Suzuki's glorious winning farewell, as he won two of the final three races.
"We have really good memories there," Rins agreed when The Race put it to him that after a breakthrough weekend like Mandalika the only place even better for him to go next than Phillip Island would be Austin - scene of his first MotoGP win in 2019 and the so-anomalous-it-still-seems-unreal 2023 victory for LCR Honda.
Those were seasons that looked like they were going to define what Rins should've been in MotoGP and why he wasn't ever going to be it.
Some 2019 performances, such as his last-corner defeat of Marquez in the British GP for Suzuki, set him up as one of the rising stars most likely to topple Marquez long-term, along with his eventual Yamaha team-mate Fabio Quartararo.
Between then and the brilliant end to 2022/start to 2023, there was a little too much crashing, too much being overshadowed by Joan Mir at Suzuki, and that occasion when he broke his arm by cycling into a van while texting someone. But the final Suzuki period and amazing start at LCR Honda looked like the return of the real Rins.
Then the savage leg break at Mugello in June 2023 wrecked it all. As he struggled in Quartararo's shadow at Yamaha across 2024/25 while visibly still grappling with the after-effects of that injury in everyday life, the correlation seemed too obvious. Rins insisted it wasn't his leg holding him back, that it was a matter of adapting the Yamaha to his style. Given he was still sometimes using a crutch in the paddock at the start of this year, he seemed to be (perhaps deliberately for the sake of his career) ignoring the obvious other likely factor.
In recent months as he continued to insist the fitness concerns were gone yet remained anonymous at best on track, the judgement felt obvious. If this was a fully fit Rins, then it wasn't good enough to justify the factory Yamaha seat he's contracted to occupy to the end of 2026. Most of the fleeting highs came from following other riders in qualifying and weren't sustained in races. Yamaha's not the kind of manufacturer to kick a rider out, but there was surely no way it would keep Rins on into the new rules era in 2027 and its loyalty to him until then risked wasting a bike.
But Mandalika felt so different. Yes, he followed Quartararo for the lap that put him fourth on the grid - but he wasn't following that closely. This wasn't just down to a tow. Yes, he still crashed after setting that time then prolonged the yellows by trying to remount the bike even though he wouldn't have time for another flying lap. But while that was a bit dubious, the only riders whose last laps Rins potentially compromised were the two works Hondas so he was still heading for the second row regardless.
Marquez's first-lap dive-bomb consigned Rins to 12th in the sprint. A soft tyre choice made the grand prix a bit of a deceptive glory run - four laps in a giddy second place, but back to 10th within three more laps as he'd used everything the tyre had.
But it was so telling that when he came in from what should have been a hugely frustrating sprint, the first thing Rins wanted to talk about was the breakthrough qualifying pace and what was behind it - in particular gains under braking.
"Already in Motegi we did a step forward in terms of producing the speed of the bike, to entering the corner, to not miss the apex and have the correct line," he said.
"This track has fast corners and slow corners. There are two sectors where you have to do a really good line - like corner one and corner 10 - you have to stop the bike really well to go in and have the apex. And we've fixed it since Motegi and I'm quite happy because I was able to be strong in that area. And then sector two and sector four are really fast sectors, corners that I like.
"And maybe this is the consequence. We were able to put everything in place and do a really good laptime."
Rins won't actually need to do a lot of heavy braking and precise slow-corner entry around Phillip Island's flowing bends. He will, however, need the sort of confidence he was exuding after that Mandalika pace.
"I never stopped believing in me. There are some people around me that stopped believing in me. Questioning and stopped believing. But I never stopped believing that I was able to do it," he said.
"It's so tough [being doubted]. It's so tough when people are not trusting in you anymore and you are there and you are fighting and you are pushing. It's quite satisfying [to prove doubters wrong]."
Every positive Rins answer also contained a variation on this caveat: "It was only one weekend, let's see how it continues."
But there hadn't been another weekend quite like this since Rins's injury. Whoever he followed, he hadn't qualified higher than eighth since joining Yamaha and Mandalika was only his seventh top 10 start in nearly two years on the M1.
That M1 is about to change massively too. The V4 engine is coming. Though Rins has used inline-four engines for the vast majority of his MotoGP career, he won on only his third start with a V4 in his truncated Honda season. He sounded more optimistic about the engine's characteristics than Quartararo did after the Misano test.
There's cause for hope here. The Rins MotoGP story may be set for a happier end than it seemed.
"It reminds me a little bit of the old times, you know, with the Suzuki, enjoying it," he mused after the Mandalika main race.
"I was riding quite well, I was defending the position, I was overtaking.
"We did a great weekend."
