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Factory Yamaha stars look ready to end winless streak after strong Texas showing
Yamaha look closer to ending a disastrous 13-race winless streak after Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi showed impressive pace in America to finish second and fourth. Rossi was upbeat after the race and is now hoping to fight at the front and be a factor in the title battle for the rest of 2018. He said: “The bike feels more like the Yamaha that I know from the past. I feel better about front-end feeling, corner entry and in fast corners. Now everything feels good. “I wanted to try for the podium and I’m not completely happy to have missed it. But two bikes in the top four means that we’re quite competitive again now.” Viñales, too, was smiling again. After pre-season claims that the Yamaha M1 was being built around Rossi and a clash with Marc Marquez in qualifying, he managed to get back on song with his first podium finish since Silverstone back in August. Working hard in recent races to get a better understanding of how the control electronics work with Yamaha’s 2018-spec chassis and engine, the Spaniard says he’s delighted with the progress.
‘We’re getting stronger every weekend’
“We’re coming! I enjoyed the weekend so much, and even though we aren’t at the maximum level yet, we’re still getting stronger every weekend,” he said. “We improved in Austin from Argentina, we’re starting to understand how to go faster on the bike and we’ve got more to come. I can’t wait to get to Jerez now, because it’s a track that suits our bike.
“We needed more power, but I’ve been riding more aggressively, especially at the beginning of the race. It’s something I was able to do last year but wasn’t able to do this year, but now it’s getting better.” However, there are still issues to be addressed. With Viñales struggling during the opening laps of the race and Rossi’s old nemesis of tyre wear slowing his charge in the final stages, more work has to be done if the Yamaha pair really want to mount a serious title challenge in 2018.
Viñales added: “We have to try to improve the bike without losing the feeling that we’ve got now.”