Maverick Vinales is one of the riders who crashed in turn 5 during the MotoGP Sprint in Jerez. At that point there was a wetland which claimed several “victims” on Saturday afternoon. Everyone was left in disbelief after ending up on the gravel. A real shame for the Aprilia team, which at the start of the race had lost Aleix Espargaro due to another fall and then was unable to collect points even with its other rider. In the long race the track conditions should be better and there will be a chance to make up for it.
MotoGP Jerez, Vinales is bitter
Vinales admitted that making a difference in Andalusia is more complicated than in Austin, where he did a double, there are many competitive opponents: “Here it is more difficult – he told Sky Sport MotoGP – because everyone is fine. But when I was in the garage I looked at the pace and I had the same as the leaders, so in the long race I have to make an incredible start and get in front, I can compete for it“.
The former Suzuki and Aprilia rider believes that the sprint had to be postponed because the track conditions were not safe enough: “The topic was the state of the track. They kept us running even though we were falling like bowling pins. That’s a topic to talk about, the condition was very bad. You couldn’t see that turn 5 was wet, Aleix already made an incredible flight on lap 8, without gas, only because he took the wet part. I don’t understand how they can send for a race, especially a sprint, with the track so wet. There were definitely no conditions for racing, we all fell out of nowhere. Obviously it’s always something delicate, but I think that we drivers need to agree a little more, because nothing happens if we wait half an hour longer and race on a dry track.“.
Aprilia must improve
Maverick and Espargaro did not qualify well (eleventh and twelfth time respectively). Vinales admits that Aprilia has some problems with a specific track condition: “Regardless of the tire choice, I think we suffer a lot in mixed conditions. When the track was wetter, I felt much more comfortable. When it started to dry I started to struggle, especially when entering the bike into corners, because the rear was slipping and when I took the gas in my hand I was out of line. There was practically no grip. We learned something, we have to improve for the future, we can’t start eleventh if we want to stay in front. We must continue to grow“.
The Noale team has been working hard in recent years to stay at the top in MotoGP and there are still some aspects on which to intervene to make the RS-GP more competitive. We’ll see how the long race goes.
Photo: MotoGP
