If there is one thing that characterized Maverick Vinales in the Indonesian MotoGP Grand Prix it is optimism. In the midst of Aprilia’s results crisis, the Spanish rider arrived at Mandalika quite confident after the improvement that the Noale manufacturer recorded in the previous Grand Prix, the second held at Misano. He was confident that he could achieve good results this weekend, without thinking of anything in particular, but without ruling anything out either.
Qualifying compromised his aspirations a bit, as he was tenth on the starting grid after being hit by a couple of yellow flags which prevented him from lapping at his best. In the Sprint he rose to seventh place. And on Sunday, in the main event, the Roses rider held out in an elimination race, in which only twelve riders crossed the finish line, to finish sixth, leading the chasing pack ahead of Fabio Quartararo and Brad Binder.
Vinales finished 11.3 seconds behind the winner, Jorge Martin, with an improvement compared to the Emilia Romagna GP (he had finished 15.4 seconds behind Enea Bastianini). Thus, he ended the weekend happy, because the Lombok round was the best for him in recent times. But he is not satisfied, because with the pace he showed he believes he could have even fought for the podium.
Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“The truth is that it was a very good race. We must be happy, but not satisfied, because we could have fought for the podium with the pace we had”, began Maverick, summing up for the journalists. “I was comfortable in 1’31″0, in 1’31″1…. When I pushed a little, I was doing 1’30″8 or 1’30″9, and that was the pace I saw ahead Then I picked up the time sheets and said to myself: ‘You can’t miss a single session’. You have to be on the first or second row, and you have to be there from the first lap you could have shone, but it went well.”
In fact, the number 12 blamed Saturday’s qualifying for not leaving Indonesia with a better result: “Q2 was the one that penalized me for the rest of the weekend. I got two yellow flags, I’m not managed to set a time. But I’m happy, because of the last seven races, this was a weekend where we took a step forward, not backwards. I’m satisfied with the result. We have to maintain this speed for Japan Today, you can dream big.”
Although there are fears that heat problems could once again affect Aprilia on the Asian tour, Vinales commented on Thursday that he did not expect a major problem at Mandalika. And after the weekend he confirmed his theory: “It was a fast race, very fast. It’s a very hot circuit, where if you go off the line a little the track is dirty. But of the last six races, this was the best weekend for me. On this track you suffer from the extreme heat, but since you are always off the bike, you don’t suffer so much”, he added.
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