Vinales makes his Yamaha breakthrough
Maverick Vinales was a man under the microscope at Motogp’s second visit to Misano in the space of seven days.
He’d blasted the qualifying lap record and threatened domination during the San Marino Grand Prix weekend, but ended up sixth, 5.4 seconds off the victory – or, as he put it, going from a “beast on track to a kitty”.
In the post-race test on Tuesday he was back on top form. And then it deserted him on the Friday of the Emilia Romagna GP. A change was needed for the Yamaha man. “Friday, I felt really bad, honestly,” he said after scoring victory last Sunday.
“But somehow that situation gave us the opportunity to improve and to take us to the reality when the bike is on race settings.”
In the San Marino race, Vinales had been the only rider to run the hard tyre. He defended the decision at the time, but conceded after scorching to another pole at Misano last Saturday (with an even faster lap) that he was led astray by a Yamaha tyre technician who insisted it was his best option. It was a mistake, Vinales noted, that had been made too often in recent years.
But the mistake from Vinales was in not working more on race set-up during practice. This changed for Emilia Romagna. He ran more with a full fuel tank to try to understand the behaviour of the Yamaha in the early parts of races, where he has struggled so much. His Friday issues forced him into looking closely at improving the balance of the M1 to gain greater confidence on the front end as opposed to chasing rear grip that would desert him in races.
Pramac Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia came through into the lead on lap six when the poleman made a mistake at Turn 4, but the consistency of Vinales’s pace on high fuel was an immediate step forward.
The power of the Ducati and the lack of it in the Yamaha made it impossible to put up a fight, but he kept Bagnaia within reach, the gap hovering at around 1-1.5s from lap 10 to 20. Vinales’s pace was marginally quicker on his medium rubber as Bagnaia’s soft tyre started to lose its shine as the 27-lap race tipped over the halfway mark.
This kept the pressure on, though overhauling the rapid Ducati was unlikely. Crucially, however, Vinales was never once under threat from the chasing KTM of
Pol Espargaro and Petronas SRT Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo debating third, soon to be joined by Suzuki’s Joan Mir.
Bagnaia’s dreams of a first win on home soil came to a bitter end on lap 21 when he fell at Turn 6, a tumble that both disappointed and perplexed him, as the data showed no obvious cause. Mentor Valentino Rossi’s day had also been wrecked by a crash.
Bagnaia’s exit released Vinales into a commanding lead, and he made it home safely to banish all the doubts surrounding his Sunday performances. It was his eighth win in the top class, his first since the Malaysian GP in November 2019.
Mir scythed up the inside of Quartararo late on for third before getting ahead
of Espargaro on the penultimate lap, his lowly 11th in qualifying once again denying him a shot at fighting for victory. Quartararo followed the Suzuki through on the same tour, before he was hit with a long-lap penalty for exceeding track limits too many times. But Quartararo was unable to serve it as the message was sent to him on the last lap after he’d passed the penalty loop section at Turn 10. Claiming he hadn’t even received a track-limits warning, he was hit with a three-second penalty and dropped to fourth, promoting Espargaro to the podium.
Tech3 KTM man Miguel Oliveira’s strong pace allowed him to jump from 15th to fifth ahead of the sole remaining Hondas after the Misano double-header: LCR’S Takaaki Nakagami and factory rookie Alex Marquez.
Eighth place for Andrea Dovizioso keeps him in the lead of the championship, by one point. The Ducati rider, Vinales, Quartararo and Mir are covered by just four.
Quartararo’s team-mate, San Marino winner Franco Morbidelli, battled through illness and an early tangle with Aleix Espargaro to recover to ninth from 19th.
Now the sixth different winner in 2020, Vinales is no more a favourite than anyone else. And the Yamaha’s inefficiency in battle will cause problems. But at least Vinales appears to have made the breakthrough with his bike he has spent years searching for. Catalunya this weekend will reveal all…