Maverick Vinales’ early-race pace again vanished down the toilet as he was swamped on the run to the first corner at Catalunya, finishing the first lap 15th from a second-row start.
The Spaniard thought he had found a solution to his first-lap woes but it appears not, as Vinales was forced into following Cal Crutchlow and Aleix Espargaro for two-thirds of the race.
“Nothing went to plan. We tried to take the maximum points, but anyway it’s remaining like always, four, five years we have no power. I lost a lot of places at the start. Not on the initial part, but in the second part of the start,” said Vinales, speaking at the track.
“We started the race knowing that, but for me what’s very frustrating is I pass 16 laps fighting behind Aleix and Cal, and I could not pass – impossible - only time I passed was at corner five, braking on the outside.
Crazy move, which I risked crashing a lot. When I got alone, I had really good lap times. When you get stuck behind someone, you cannot pass, this is the main problem.
“All weekend I was struggling with the grip and we tried many things, maybe too much, and for sure we lost the way this weekend.
“We arrived to the warm-up with a very different setup and we didn’t know what to choose. So, when you don’t do the correct job, this is the result you have.”
Vinales was the only Yamaha not suffering with grip problems but his laptimes were a second or so off M1s at the head of the pack. At the end, he was still in the 1’41s while Franco Morbidelli has dropped into the 1’42 and winner fabzio Quartararo was on Moto2 pace.
“The problem is this track. If you start in front, today would have been a completely different result, because the second part of the race I was very strong with the tyres.
“I didn’t have that kind of issue with the tyres, but when you don’t start good with this bike you cannot defend yourself.
“So, the only thing you can do is let laps and laps pass, and until the opponents lose the grip you can’t overtake. And I just cruised for 16 laps behind Aleix and Cal, they were defending really good because I wasn’t able to pass.”
