MotoGP | GP Valencia 2 Qualifying: Maverick Vinales, "I'm thinking about 2021, I don't want to make mistakes on the bike like in the last 4 years"

MotoGP Valencian Community GP Yamaha MotoGP Qualifying – Maverick Vinales closed the first day of free practice at the Valencia Grand Prix, the penultimate stage of the 2020 MotoGP, with the sixth fastest time.

The Yamaha Spaniard closed the first free practice session with the third fastest time, just 115 thousandths from the top. In the afternoon the #12 continued to work on the set-up in view of the race, but was unable to improve the time recorded in the morning and finished tenth.

Statements Maverick Vinales GP Valencia MotoGP Qualifying

“I'm quite happy, because we found several good things and the feeling is good. I was hoping to make the front row, but I'm happy. Let's see if tomorrow we can make an improvement with the rear grip. We're trying to stay in the top 6. I don't have any strategy, for me it's important now to understand the strategy for next year. When the grip isn't good we suffer, we have to push hard when braking because we struggle when accelerating. We're a bit lost with the new bike, so we need to set the right direction for next year. After FP1 we improved a lot because we found something different, but we lost a bit of grip, tomorrow we'll try to improve that too. The circuit didn't improve much over the weekend so tomorrow we'll see how to improve also considering the weather. Between me and Morbidelli the bikes are completely different, so we can't take him as an example, we can only focus on our bike. If I went back maybe I would choose something else, but in the tests at the end of 2019 the sensations were different. We made a mistake in choosing, so we must be more careful in choosing. We have two or three months to improve. In Sepang I decided on the bike because I had a good feeling, then the team choice takes place. The problem is when there is little grip, because when there is no need to do anything you just have to think about driving, while when there isn't it it's difficult to drive. This weekend we are focusing on riding with little grip, trying different set-ups in anticipation of 2020, but many things don't seem to work. We need to make a change, we've been making the wrong choice for 4 years, we need to have a competitive bike on all tracks."