Maverick Viñales (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) ended Day 1 struggling in Thailand, and the Spaniard says Saturday began the same – before some big progress saw him move up to fourth overall. Also top Yamaha, with Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) in P5 and Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) outside the top ten, it was a better end to a day that Viñales says began with too big a delay in finding the direction.
“It took a long time to understand which way to go on the bike, maybe too long,” explains Viñales. “I didn’t feel good on the bike until the afternoon, feeling like I could ride with good pace, but we’ve changed some things and maybe that’s the way to follow and we’ll confirm it tomorrow. Following my feelings, my own setup, that’s when I feel good and I can ride with my style.”
Turning his attention to the afternoon, Viñales picked out the rhythm more than the outright pace, and was positive about the latter stage of the day. “We made an incredible step in the afternoon, 1:30 in the rhythm, and that’s the most important thing.”
His crew chief, Ramon Forcada, explained that the issue remains with grip, specifically at the rear. “The layout looks like a good track for us but we’re struggling a lot in rear grip, then here it’s quite hard braking and without rear grip we struggle for braking. We’re trying to find a good setting at the rear.”
Is that something shared across the garage? On teammate Valentino Rossi’s side, both nine-time Champion rider and Crew Chief Silvano Galbusera picked out the electronics as the focus on Day 2 and where they’re losing out – but there weren’t many solutions found. Yet.
“It was a tough day,” explains Rossi. “We started quite well in the morning, and I did some good laptimes. After we had some work to do and something to try, and I didn’t like it a lot. Some things with the electronics and the settings but we didn’t improve. We also had to do some work for Michelin. It was a tough day! Now we have to concentrate and speak with the guys to try and follow another way.
“We lose in acceleration a lot because we lose with the electronics, and the other manufacturers it looks like they’re able to be faster and find something else. We worked a lot on that today but we didn’t find the positives.”
There’s another day left for problem solving, however, and action begins half an hour earlier on Sunday at 9:00am (GMT +7).