Maverick Viñales finished Sunday’s race in 4th position. The Spanish rider had a difficult start to the race, with Jorge Martín making overtaking difficult for the Aprilia Racing rider. Once Maverick Viñales had passed, the Prima Pramac Racing rider recovered a gap of more than 3 seconds to Luca Marini and finished in contention for the podium at the Qatar GP.

In his debrief, the rider spoke about the race and the feelings he had during the race at the Losail circuit.

– ‘ I think it was a positive race for us. I was able to ride the bike very well today and the most important thing was that we were able to identify our difficulties and solve them. At the start of the race I couldn’t overtake Jorge because of the usual problem, tire pressure increasing with the temperature, but as soon as I overtook him the pressure returned to normal and I had another response from the bike. Our goal this winter will be to find a rocket start system.

Asked about his opinion of this circuit and the new conditions in Qatar, Maverick replied: ‘The new asphalt is fantastic here. When there’s new asphalt there’s always something extra in the grip and it’s easier to ride with fewer bumps. The bike was incredible this weekend and we rode very well today, even in Sepang I was very positive because we were able to identify our difficulties and solve them, it was the same here. From this step we’ve taken we’ve been able to grow a lot, the engineers just need to improve the starting system and we’re fine. I tried to get into third place, at turn 15 I even pushed early to overtake him (Marini), but I couldn’t do it. I know what I can do, I have the potential to win races, it’s true that the Ducati is on another level, but we have to keep improving.

O conteúdo ‘The most important thing was that we were able to identify our difficulties and solve them’ – Maverick Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Maverick Viñales led the warm-up of the MotoGP Qatar GP. It was a session in daytime that riders used to fine-tune the final details before the main race.

Johann Zarco (Prima Pramac/Ducati) was the first leader, ahead of Viñales (Aprilia), who was later overtaken by Raúl Fernández (CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team/Aprilia).

Lap times improved as Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) later took the top spot, with Viñales returning to second, and Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha) climbing to third place.

With less than two minutes until the checkered flag, there were further changes, with Zarco back in the lead, Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) in second, and Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM) in third.

On his penultimate lap, Viñales reclaimed the lead, clocking in 0.236s faster than Zarco, and the positions remained unchanged until the end. Quartararo also held on to the third position.

Meanwhile, Álex Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) climbed to fourth, and Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) to fifth. As for the title contenders, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) secured ninth place, and Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) finished in 16th.

Timesheet:

O conteúdo Maverick Viñales set the pace in the MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix warm-up aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

World lead, I’m coming for you! There you have it, Jorge Martín won the Sprint race at the Qatar GP and “cut” the lead in the world championship considerably. Fabio Di Giannantonio had no arguments to take the lead and “help” Pecco Bagnaia who ended up in a “disastrous” fifth place.

Everything was in place for the start of the Sprint at Lusail, with a different first grid than usual: Luca Marini took pole position, Fabio Di Giannantonio was second fastest and Álex Márquez third, with the championship leaders – Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martín – fourth and fifth respectively, with Johann Zarco closing the second row.

The start went well for Marini, but Martín soon began to gain positions, as did Bagnaia, with both riders side by side. Martín ended up making a mistake and losing positions, before the first (joint) crash of the race involved three riders: Enea Bastianini, Aleix Espargaró and the unlucky Miguel Oliveira.

Start of the race:

Crash:

Martín didn’t want to waste any time and forced his way past Bagnaia, with A. Márquez also passing briefly for the lead, with Marini responding and retaking the lead. Seconds later it was DiGia’s turn to beat Bagnaia.

After three laps Marini was leading by 0.101s over A. Márquez, with Martín in third at 0.296s off the leader. Bagnaia was fifth at 0.895s.

Of the riders who crashed, only Bastianini remained on the track.

Martín moved up to second place and was provisionally gaining four points on the reigning world champion, who remained in fifth.

Di Giannantonio was in good form and reached the top step of the podium after beating his team-mate, who, it should be remembered, still doesn’t have a confirmed place on the grid for 2024.

Halfway through the race, this was the top ten, just moments before Martín took the race lead!

DiGia was in attack mode, with the #49 rising to second shortly afterwards. Even so, the Gresini rider was 0.494s (!) behind Martín. Bagnaia remained fifth, more than 2s behind the leader.

DiGia was one of the fastest and was starting to gain time on Martín, with the latter now leading by 0.219s. The lead increased again, but it remained in the region of 3 tenths of a second and any mistake, no matter how small, could be crucial.

Going into the final lap Martín and DiGia were 0.171s apart.

The race ended shortly afterwards with Martín confirming the victory!

O conteúdo Jorge Martín wins Sprint and “cuts” Bagnaia’s lead in half; Italian was fifth and sees title decision postponed to Valencia aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Maverick Viñales was close to setting a new MotoGP lap record at the Losail Circuit. During the second practice session of the Qatar GP, the Aprilia rider clocked in at 1m52.652s.

This time would have been a new record, but the Spanish rider had passed through a yellow flag zone moments earlier due to Jack Miller’s (Red Bull KTM) crash.

As the rules stipulate that laps completed under yellow flags should be canceled if the rider passes through the incident area, Viñales saw his record lap canceled ultimately aiding Raúl Fernández (CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team/Aprilia) in becoming the fastest in the session.

O conteúdo Video: Yellow flags cancel Maverick Viñales’ lap record aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

It’s with some curiosity that Maverick Viñales sets off for another round of MotoGP, this time returning to Losail. As well as showing a desire to realise how much faster he can be, the Spaniard also spoke about the busy schedule and admitted he wasn’t happy.

The Aprilia Racing rider began by analysing the weekend ahead: ‘I’m excited to work, to push as hard as I can and that’s clear, and to understand more and more things, especially as it’s the last two races and you always want to help and get information. I’m curious to see how much we can improve on last year’.

Asked how the RS-GP will react to the tarmac: ‘I don’t know, it’s going to be a lottery. I don’t know if the others have been on the track, with street bikes or not, but what I see on TV is that the track is very dirty, we’ll have to see. The first few days will be about cleaning the track, at least that’s how I understand it. It’s going to be tough in terms of set-up and it’s not going to be easy to get everything right, but at the end of the day there are 18 races, so the bike is already set up and we have to focus on the (main) job, which is the tyres‘.

On the tight schedule that has forced him to travel a lot, Viñales was clear: ‘I’m not happy because we have families, but that’s what they pay you for, isn’t it? For me travelling… in the end the jetlag… You go to Malaysia, Australia, it’s a lot for me, at the end of the day this is our job and we have to do it in the best way. For me with the Sprint it’s very tough, and race by race it’s getting tougher. We’ll see next year. Maybe this was a year of training and the next one will be better. We’ll see’.

O conteúdo ‘Racing here is going to be a lottery; I’m not happy with travelling so much, I have a family, but this is what they pay you for’ – Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Maverick Viñales finished the Malaysian GP race in 11th position. The Aprilia Racing rider was the only one of the Aprilia riders to finish the race this weekend.

The Spanish rider spoke about the race and the feelings he had during the weekend.

– ‘ It was very tough, of course. I want to thank Aprilia for their work this weekend, I managed to finish the race and that’s good enough. It’s not a positive result, but I was able to extract a lot of information from this race for the next GP, we have more potential to do better and today behind the Ducati riders, I was able to extract very important ideas and solutions’.

Asked about the difficulties faced by all the Aprilia riders this weekend, Maverick replied: ‘If we compare it to last year I improved by 25 seconds and last year we had a lot of difficulties too. Sometimes it’s like that, it doesn’t go well, but we have to regroup because you never know if at the next circuit the bike will work and we need to be ready and fight.

With the rumors and Aleix Espargaró’s statements revealing the idea that the RNF riders should have the 2023 bike, so that they can develop and get better results for Aprilia, Viñales added: ‘They should have the 2023 bike, but I don’t know, Massimo (Rivola) knows the answer to that question, but they should have more data because it would be much more interesting for the team’s data for sure.

O conteúdo ‘They should have the 2023 bike, but I don’t know, Massimo knows best’ – Maverick Viñales on giving the 2023 RS-GP to RNF riders aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Ducati has been the dominant brand in this season’s MotoGP and today in Sepang there was another show from our strong the Desmosedici is, with seven bikes inside the top ten. Maverick Viñales, the tenth, was one of those who finish behind the (many) Ducati and said, after the Sprint race that ‘all factories have to wake up’ and improve.

The rider who was 10th, 7.241s from the race winner Alex Marquez, spoke of his qualifying and believes he can have a interesting long race this sunday: ‘It went well, better than I expected. Yes, the position is not what I want, because I want to be at the front. But the feeling was better. We tried something this morning with the rear suspension. Then I wanted to take it to qualifying to test it, because it’s something we’re taking out as a test for next year, and it went better. I didn’t have an amazing qualifying, but to come ninth here is good. I think we can have a good race tomorrow’.

He then spoke of the italian’s manufacturer dominance and said that it is crucial, not only for Aprilia, to make a step forward: ‘Seven Ducati, two KTMs and us. We have to be with the KTMs at least. At least there, we have to fight. And we are on the pace, so we’ll see tomorrow. I think the reading of all this is that the factories have to wake up. It can’t be that Ducati makes it single-brand. I think the others also have to realise that we have to improve’.

And concluded: ‘I feel much better with more distance, because I don’t have a lot of traction, but I don’t use a lot of tyre. I can use that to my advantage at the end of the race. But there are 7 Ducati there, with an incredible pace. I don’t know what to say… I’m waiting for them to come down in physicality or tomorrow they’ll use up the rubber and we’ll see how we get on. I did have pace at the front, I had Zarco, Marini, Bezzecchi… and little by little I was catching them, more and more. I’m riding very well’.

O conteúdo Maverick Viñales worried how far back manufacturers are compared to Ducati: ‘The factories have to wake up realize we have to improve’ aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Aprilia’s semi-automatic clutch system, which was an advantage for starts, has been banned. Maverick Viñales himself confirmed the prohibition of this mechanism without going into details.

Speaking to the press, #12 stated: ‘The thing is we had one system, but the championship banned it, so we cannot use and we go back to the standard clutch. Now the starts are difficult again, so that was the difference. Until Australia we were using a different way to start, but it has been banned and we cannot use, so we are using a standard procedure as always and it’s not easy’.

According to Motorsport.com, other Aprilia sources said the matter is confidential, but it is reported that the system was banned after a complaint from another manufacturer. Thus, since the Australian GP, the Noale manufacturer has had to return to the previous clutch. The most recent one was a clutch that did not dispense with the rider’s intervention but worked as if it were automatic.

It is believed that the protest came from KTM, which, despite also having a similar version of the clutch, considers that Aprilia’s depends too much on electronic control. While technical directors initially authorized the solution because it required rider intervention, an unidentified track engineer assures Motorsport.com that it is an automatic clutch similar to those used in Formula 1.

In addition to complaining about Aprilia’s clutch, KTM is also said to have requested a change to the current regulations in order to homologate its own solution – although it voluntarily removed it from the Thai GP onwards.

O conteúdo Aprilia’s clutch system banned after a complaint from a rival aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

The inability of the Aprilia bikes to mitigate the effects of generated heat caused many difficulties for their riders in the MotoGP Thailand GP. One of those who felt it the most was Maverick Viñales, who had to retire from the race.

The Spaniard explained to the press that the issue worsened with the 2023 bike, and in Buriram, he reached the physical limit and had to retire: ‘Honestly the problemas are from the last year, but as Aleix and myself are on a really good physical condition, we cover it. But this year honestly, with the new bike, is worse, and it was impossible. We said in India they had to solve otherwise we cannot finish the race and I didn’t finish the race in Thailand – it was impossible from my side, honestly. So I hope they bring something, otherwise here will be retired again. So, we’ll see. It’s though’.

Asked if he had ever retired from a race due to phyisical reasons, Viñales said that it was a first in his career: ‘Not in my life, not even in a mountain bike race. I never retired – I race with injuries, with a lot of injuries, and I never retired. For me it was very though to retire, but I missed the braking three times and I said: «OK, Maverick, stop, it makes no sense, we have to stop». I was exhausted, honestly. When I went out of the bike my heart rate was 200, I was really bad’.

O conteúdo ‘I never retired due to the physical condition; it was though to retire in Thailand’ – Maverick Viñales aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.

Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales, two prominent figures in the world of MotoGP, recently expressed their opinions on the situation at RNF, where Miguel Oliveira is currently racing. Both riders seem perplexed by the dynamics and decisions made within the team.

Espargaró, in a recent interview, mentioned: “I’ve been observing the developments at RNF, especially with Miguel Oliveira’s performance. It’s a bit perplexing to see the choices they’re making and the direction they’re taking.” He further added that, although each team has its internal strategies and decisions, the moves at RNF seem a bit out of the ordinary.

“The thing is, [the bikes] are the same. Their bike is from 2022 and ours from 2023, but they are practically identical. I don’t want to speak ill of RNF and its riders, but I don’t quite understand what’s going on there. You can’t get a clear picture of what they’re doing in their box. There hasn’t been a race where they’ve been competitive; they’re two good riders, two good bikes, but I don’t quite get it. I don’t know.”

Maverick Viñales echoed similar sentiments, stating: “Miguel is a talented rider, and seeing the current scenario at RNF is a bit surprising. I’m not aware of their internal discussions, but from an external perspective, it’s hard to understand their game plan.”

“Personally, I like to work alone. Honestly, I try to make my own way, I don’t focus much on what Raúl or Miguel are doing. They have a slightly different bike. It’s factory-made, but it’s not the same, and often the data can be confusing. I try to focus on mine and do my job, knowing that at each circuit we will be better next year because I found this or that.”

“For me, as a rider, it’s not important [whether or not there’s a satellite team]. For Aprilia, it might be as a brand. It would be good if everyone had the same bike, so we would have more information. For me, it hasn’t served any purpose. Also, because there’s no teamwork, everyone goes their own way, and it hasn’t been a help. They also want to win, of course, that’s the competition.”

Miguel Oliveira, a rising star on the MotoGP circuit, has been the focus of many discussions due to his potential and the expectations surrounding him. The decisions and strategies of RNF, where he races, are naturally under scrutiny given his caliber.

While it’s not uncommon for teams and their strategies to be discussed in the racing community, the recent comments from Espargaró and Viñales highlight a growing curiosity about RNF’s plans for the future and how they intend to leverage Oliveira’s skills.

It remains to be seen how RNF will respond to these observations and whether any change in strategy or direction will be evident in the upcoming races.

O conteúdo Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales perplexed by Miguel Oliveira: “There hasn’t been a race where they’ve been competitive.” aparece primeiro em Motorcycle Sports.