Monster Yamaha’s Maverick Vińales concluded a productive and positive Qatar test seventh overall despite choosing not to attack the times and using the 2020 frame.

Concentrating instead on perfecting his riding style to suit the 2021 YZR-M1, the Spaniard seemed pleased with his 14-hours of testing completed so far, even though he suffered a crash, unhurt, at turn two when the temperatures began to drop.

His 1‘54.395 best time, set on lap 55 of 66, left him 0.455s from teammate, and overall fastest rider, Fabio Quartararo but the 26-year-old seemed content with the outcome, knowing he had been far from pushing and leaving plenty in reserve for the coming week’s additional three days on track.

Commenting on Sunday evening, Vińales explained: “I’m really pleased with the job we’ve done, honestly I’m surprised for a few things because didn’t expect to be that fast but we need to keep working like that. I think Yamaha has done a good plan for us.

“We are aiming for consistency this season. At the end of today‘s session, we did five or six laps that were really good for us. Those were the lap times we were looking for.”

When questioned about the new chassis that YMC made available for both the works and Petronas machines, Vińales replied: “Actually we didn’t work yet with the new chassis. We just had the old package and a few general things in the second bike.

“I concentrated a lot on my riding style and also working with the electronics, which is always important, and to see if I can solve that typical problem that we have when there is no grip. We need more laps to understand but it seems that the direction is really good. We worked with the electronics quite a lot, so we saw many interesting things, that’s why I’m positive, because I saw many interesting things on riding style and I can’t wait to be back on the bike and to get good lap times.

“Honestly speaking I was quite surprised that in the middle of the day I could ride in the 1’54s. This makes me always very positive, because the grip was not that good, but I could ride pretty fast. For sure, maybe my position today could be much better and also I could ride faster, but I’m really happy and pleased about the feeling that I get from the bike to get the rhythm, so we’ll see in the next test.

“I’m working very hard for the race. We are trying to improve this weak point, we know we have the speed, we know we can do one lap, we know we can be amazing in one lap but we are not amazing in the first laps of the race, and not even at the start. So these are the points we are working very hard.

“For sure we will need to do a time attack in the next test to see how everything is working, but overall the general feeling, I can say that I am very happy about the work that Yamaha has done during the winter.”