It wasn’t a happy weekend for Maverick Vinales last week and having a race this weekend could be the best medicine to help him forget about forgetting. The Spaniard is actually coming back from a 14th place in Brno, which he quickly tried to get rid of from his mind.
“This week I tried to switch off a bit – says Maverick – to try to get into the race in the best physical and mental shape: We have a lot of data to analyze and we have to be in the best conditions.”
The new date in the championship will take place at the Red Bull Ring, a circuit that Yamaha hasn’t done particularly well over the years, but what primarily worries Vinales is the tires.
“The main goal is to regain proper confidence on the bike, try to understand the tires in order to avoid the mistakes made in Brno: in the Czech Republic my tires lasted three laps So I really believe that I made some wrong decisions. We need to talk to Michelin and work together in order to make optimal use of the information available to us. Then of course it will be necessary to work from FP1 to find a good set-up for the race.
Another hot topic at Yamaha over the past few weeks has been the reliability of the engines, but there is no new information on this.
“I don’t have any updates on the engines. In Brno we had no problems so i think and believe that i am in a good situation ”.
In conclusion, Vinales says about the (very high) possibility having to drive in Austria in the wet, which doesn’t seem unduly troubling to him.
“We tried the wet asphalt during the warm-up last year, but you have to be very careful with the tightness of the barriers. I think I’m ready to race in these conditions too. We just have to see how the situation will be ”.