Maverick Viñales finished the sprint race at the Dutch MotoGP Grand Prix in the same third position in which he started – once again unable to challenge Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati).
The Aprilia rider finished with a comfortable margin of over two seconds ahead of Enea Bastianini (Ducati), but was 1.748 seconds behind the rider immediately ahead of him – Martín. In an interview with the official broadcast, the number 12 said:
– Well, I’m not happy, because I expected to fight with them in front. But somehow the Ducati team on Saturday and Sunday takes a step forward. I tried to keep up with them, but in the end my pace was a little slower, so when I saw that I had a big gap behind me I just tried to get on the podium and not make any mistakes because I was pushing to the limit.
The main race in Assen will take place on Sunday and Viñales underlined his determination to take victory: ‘It’s important to make another step forward tomorrow; I want to fight for the win. So we’ll try. We’re doing a good job, we’re putting the bike in front, so we’ll try to be there tomorrow.‘.
