All eyes were on the Aprilia RS-GP of Maverick Viñales heading to Round 13 of the MotoGP™ World Championship following a rapid return to form. The Spaniard bagged back-to-back podium finishes for the first time since the opening two rounds of the 2020 series in Assen and Silverstone, leading to many asking if he could go full circle in Austria with victory. Redemption wasn't the order of the day, however, as Viñales eventually slipped back to 13th despite a promising start.
Viñales was up inside the top five and chasing down a quarter of Ducatis at the front in the opening laps before a mistake on the fifth lap of the Austrian Grand Prix saw him drop back to eighth. He battled his way back to sixth, settling in behind Aprilia Racing teammate Aleix Espargaro, before then in the final ten laps the number 12 dropped from seventh to thirteenth meaning he could only walk away from Spielberg with three points.
"I'm not satisfied with the position," started the 27-year-old on Sunday evening. "But I'm satisfied with some part of the races. We found some positive things, especially at the start and the first laps, they went really good. We made a mistake with the tyres with the rear choice, after 5 laps I had no more rear tyre. I just tried to push from the beginning, I was catching that leading group and then I started to feel a drop with the tyre, I could not do anything.
"I just tried to bring the bike home, take some points and I'm looking forward to Misano. I mean it’s been a good weekend for us, we learned a lot and now we go back to the normal type of tyres which works well on the bike and we can continue the way we need.
"I am looking forward but I think today we had a great chance because I started well, I had a good rhythm but we just didn't trust the medium, not choosing the medium rear tyre so clearly was a big mistake. But in the end, it was the gamble we took and it didn’t pay off, not every day is Christmas, so we need to try to work even harder, especially in the practice to understand it before. We tried in the warm-up, but unluckily it started to rain so we couldn’t try when the medium started to work. It was a difficult weekend but in the end, we found a lot of positive things about the bike and also my riding style improved a lot, so I can’t wait for Misano because I think we can be back on the top.
"Of course, the motivation is really high. I mean the objective is trying to win races and we are working for it. As I mentioned we didn't trust in the medium, we bet on the soft and it was a bad decision so we’ll take note for the future and for sure we’ll learn from this mistake."