Viñales: “We understood the Portimao problem and we will solve it”

The Yamaha rider won the first race of the season in Qatar, and was fifth in the second, held at the same circuit. However, at the Portuguese GP the doubts and ups and downs returned for Maverick Viñales, who finished eleventh, without knowing what had happened and assuring that the performance had been “unacceptable”.

This Friday, at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix, Viñales finished fifth at the end of the day, and although he admitted that “the result is not very good”, he does consider that “the day was positive”, basically because they understood the problem that they had had in the previous race.

“Today I focused on the front of the bike because in Portugal I had a lot of problems in that aspect. Here we are suffering the same problem, with the front part, because in the rear we have grip. We are working on the set-up and going back, because in Qatar we had a better balance on the bike than we had in the last race and this Friday”, explained the Yamaha rider.

Viñales assured at the beginning of the season that this year he was going to change his way of approaching work, and that he was going to try to remain calm.

“When you are calmer you can give better feedback to the technicians, they are not as aggressive, and you can be more specific about what is working well and what is not. In Portimao I had the same problem that we had today, with the front end. But we have tried new discs and pads and things have improved a lot, so we are going to solve it”, he advanced.

“It is important that we fully understand what happened in Portimao and that it does not happen again,” he stressed.

The Spanish rider suffers when it comes to stopping the bike.

“With the front tire we have some problems when we want to brake late. In Jerez you have to take more care of the rubber, there are accelerations where you spend a lot of time in maximum traction and you spend more, you have to be more careful”, he assessed.

Although last year the Yamaha dominated the two races held in Jerez, this year the Ducati seem to be closer.

“Let’s see, here everything changes from one day to the next, we have to take today’s results with tweezers, there is a long weekend left, it is difficult to know who is going to be ahead and who is not. We have to wait for FP4 on Saturday to have it clearer”.

Despite finishing fifth at the end of the day, Maverick didn’t see it as a good result, but he was happy with the job.

“The day has been very good, positive, the position has not been good, but we know why. Once you understand what is happening you can fix it, so tomorrow we are going to try to take a step forward and put everything in its place”, he concluded.