Maverick Vinales Surprised - "We Need To Understand And Learn From It"
Categories: MotoGP
After a disastrous qualifying session on Saturday, the weekend took a turn for the better for Maverick Vinales on Sunday. The Spaniard was surprised by his rain performance.
Maverick Vinales finished the race in Buriram in a strong seventh place. The rain that started before the race allowed the Aprilia rider to escape with a black eye.
Maverick Vinales leading a group of four during the race – Image provided by Motorsport Images
In the dry, the spectators saw a struggling Vinales. The Aprilia seems to have lost its good rideability from the beginning of the season with the overseas races.
Vinales sees that differently as he is getting more and more used to the bike from Noale. For him, the race in Thailand was an important step toward eliminating the last problems he has with the bike.
“I can slowly use the qualities of the bike. Very interesting for us is that I don’t have the problems in the wet that I have in the dry. We need to understand and learn from that,” the Spaniard explains.
Oddly enough, Vinales, normally a rider not keen to race in the rain, was happy with the rain setting in before the race.
“In the dry, I wouldn’t have been as strong and we wouldn’t have been able to get such a good result. We were lucky there was rain although I had a good Warm-Up on Sunday morning.”
The 27-year-old added: “For me, it’s important to feel confident in the rain because normally I’ve never been good in the rain.”
He concludes: “If we had started at the front, we could have even achieved a top 5 result in the wet. With this bike, I can be very strong”
