UPDATE: Yamaha confirms one of the Maverick Vinales crew tested positive, five team members including Massimo Meregalli are pulling out.
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Like the other Yamaha title contenders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli, Maverick Vinales appeared to have dodged a bullet when the FIM stewards only docked the constructors ‘and teams’ points for the factory’s violation of the engine homologation regulations.
But Vinales’ relief did not last long.
The Spaniard, currently third in the table and 19 points ahead of Suzuki driver Joan Mir, signaled in Valencia on Thursday that he was “running out of engines” with three laps to go.
On Friday afternoon, Vinales officially opened a sixth engine for the season, which means that in the MotoGP of Valencia it will be penalized with a pit start (+5 seconds) on Sunday.
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“You can imagine how I feel,” said Vinales on Friday evening. “Every year we give away the chance to accidentally win the title.
“Well, I’m sure my feeling is very bad, but I have a perfect situation at home, I have a perfect life, I don’t want to be angry anymore. I want to be happy.
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“Even if I don’t get the chance this year, I’ll have the next time or the next. I have two more years at Yamaha and we can do something great.”
“I don’t know about the race. I’m very open-minded. I can get a very good result, maybe I’ll have a special day, I have a great feeling, I can drive faster than anyone else. We won’t see any limits.
“We’ll see if we can get something very positive, our competitors can make mistakes, it can rain and we can have a red flag and then I can start in the position I finished. So I don’t want” the motivation to lose.
“We are certainly angry because we are not driving with the same conditions as the others. But that is our problem, so we will try to do well and finally try to work as a team as possible.”
“The only problem I see is that it’s difficult to overtake with our bike. That’s the only point. Maybe I really have to risk a lot to overtake.”
As if the pit start wasn’t bad news enough, one of his Monster Yamaha team members is said to have tested positive for Covid on Friday, which means we are eagerly waiting for Vinales’ own PCR result.
“I really do not know it [the situation]. You can see my face, I’m not taking off the mask! “Said Vinales.” I don’t want to be positive, especially because I have important people at home.
“I don’t want to pass the Covid on to my people or the team or the other drivers. So I will definitely try to take maximum prevention for the Covid. I did a PCR this morning after FP1, so we will do “see.
“What else can happen on a weekend? I don’t know!”
Vinales’ engine out before the start of the Valencia weekend.
To get back to the engine problem, Vinales said it was sunk when Yamaha first discovered how to control the valve problem after losing an engine and opening two others in Jerez 1.
This meant that he has used engines 4 and 5 in every session since then, with the exception of training in Austria.
“The problem is that in Jerez they understand the problem after we shut down the third engine,” said Vinales. “Because, if not still, I had four engines [after losing one].
“But I run out of engines from Aragon, so we did our best and in the second race I only had one engine with a lot of mileage. So we only drove small laps.” [in practice].
“We were still discussing yesterday whether we should risk going on with engine number 5, just doing a few laps in practice and taking a risk in the races and hoping that it doesn’t stop the bike.
“But it’s too risky for me, we’re too far [behind]. If you were first with 20 points you can do it, but we don’t have the attitude, the bike doesn’t work and then we have to deal with old engines. So it didn’t matter.
“We had to put in a new one. It’s true that I’ll start from the pit lane and that’s it.
“I mean, the option for the title is certainly much more difficult, but anything can still happen.
“Our problem is that we’re not on the same level. I don’t know why, after Misano we lost everything. We can’t find any grip, it’s very difficult to ride the bike.”
The big question now is whether Quartararo (14 points from Mir) and / or Morbidelli (25 points behind) will also need an additional engine in the remaining laps.
Both Petronas drivers said they didn’t know their engine situation, but Quartararo is in the best position as they haven’t lost any engines so far this season.
Vinales was 10th in the wet opening practice in Valencia, then 11th on slicks in the wet FP2 session. I was 10th overall, Quartararo 9th and Morbidelli 3rd.
The weather should get better over the weekend.