Maverick Vinales will start Sunday’s Valencia MotoGP from the pitlane after being forced to use a sixth engine.

The Monster Yamaha had a motor withdrawn from his allocation due to reliability concerns when Valentino Rossi blew one up at Jerez.

At the following meeting, also at Jerez, Vinales had unsealed all of his allocation and has used his fourth and fifth engine since Misano.

But this weekend, Yamaha has admitted he will use a sixth powerplant which is an automatic pitlane start but it’s a short exit at Valencia, so the penalty is not as severe as it would be at Portimao, for example.

"Probably that in Jerez they understand the problem after we closed the third engine," said Vinales, speaking at Valencia.

"That was the biggest problem, because if not still I'd have had four engines, so one more new.

"So, our plan was to put one new engine in for race one, and then I run out of engines.

"From Aragon I'm running out of engines, so we were managing the best we could and in the second race I only had one engine with a lot of mileage, so we just did little laps.

"Still yesterday we were discussing if to risk to go with the number five engine doing just a few laps on the practices and risk on the race and wishing we don't stop the bike.

"But for me it's too risky. If you are first with 20 points, you can do it.

"But the case is that we don't have the setting, the bike is not working, and then we'd have to face it with an old engine.

"So, there was no point. We needed to put in a new one. It's true I will start from the pitlane and I cannot do nothing. The option of the title is much more difficult, but everything can happen."