Factory Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales has taken another pop at his bosses, saying he has struggled with the YZR-M1 since 2017 and things need to change if they want to challenge for a world title.

Vinales, who has another two years on his contract with the Iwata manufacturer, isn’t too pleased with the current state of competitiveness, saying the bike can only work at certain track temperatures on a certain tyre.

“Problem is from five races ago, I didn’t feel the bike, we have lost a lot of potential and it getting every race more complicated,” said Vinales, speaking at Valencia.

“Also inside the team it is getting more difficult to understand what is going on because every race we have less and less people because of the Covid and Japanese technicians having to go back to Japan, so we are just three person working with the bike.

“Honestly it has been very tough but we try to do the best we can. For the future for sure we need to do something different as it’s not working.

“It’s from 2017 we are struggling, so we need to understand and take a correct way because the bike is very specific for one track, one tyre. It’s not good for our championship.”