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'I told them not to touch the bike... I'm going to win the world championship' - Maverick Vinales

Gold & Goose

'Bring me this bike to Qatar, with this, I'm going to win the world championship.'

Back in 2017 when Maverick Vinales joined Yamaha, he believed that he could win the MotoGP World Championship on the M1 in his first year. However, he has suggested that Yamaha ruined his chances of challenging after changing his bike.

Vinales had only been in the premier class for two years before he got on a factory Yamaha. Before his time with the Iwata factory, he spent his first couple of seasons with the factory Suzuki team.

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His arrival at Yamaha started with a bang as he topped the 2016 Valencia Test, which was his first time on the Yamaha. Vinales then proceeded to win three of the first races of the 2017 MotoGP season. However, after beating his nine-time Champion teammate, Valentino Rossi, at Le Mans, he did not win another race in 2017.

However, in a documentary on DAZN about himself Vinales stated that he believes he would have won the 2017 title on the M1 that he rode at the 2016 Valencia Test.

“When I joined Yamaha, I came in like a rocket,” Vinales said. "I arrived with a clear idea, a clear objective and that's the only thing I asked Yamaha for: ‘I want to be world champion'.

“I don't want to be anything else, don't make me be anything else because I want to be this, I'm not interested in anything else’.

“When I got on the Yamaha at the Valencia test, I fell in love with it. I asked them not to touch it. I wanted this one, which was the bike that Jorge [Lorenzo] left. [I told Yamaha] ‘Bring me this bike to Qatar, with this, I'm going to win the world championship. But when I got to Sepang [for the pre-season test], ‘Where is that bike?’

“I won the first race, I won the second, I won at Le Mans, it was one of the best days of my life, I won a battle against my idol, Valentino Rossi. But in Barcelona there was a wave of changes. I didn't understand anything. I told them not to touch the bike.”

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