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If glasses are raised in a toast on the other side of the garage, on Maverick Viñales' side, there is no lack of problems. In fact, the Ramon Forcada question is constantly looming, with the Spanish crew chief (already definitely leaving at the end of the season) heaping coals on the fire today, joking about his stay for the remaining races in the championship. The situation does not seem to be particularly under control, since in the classic meeting with journalists and number 25, no questions on the topic were permitted, much to everyone's astonishment.
With this situation, performance on the track cannot help but to feel the effects, where Maverick did not make it into Q2, giving his team a sarcastic round of applause as he returned to pit lane. He then had to run the gauntlet in Q1, having to settle for the 12th spot on the grid.
“In FP3 we made a mistake in terms of the tyres to use - he explained - so after doing well in Q1 with the medium on the front, I had to put the hard on because I did not have another new medium and hope that it would work in this high heat, but in reality, it slid around a lot and it was not possible to do better. I am not thinking about the situation. I am focused on the track and on working as best I can on the bike which is not working the way we would like it to this weekend."
There is a chance to shine and it is obviously in the race, but the Spaniard has his feet planted firmly on the ground, aware of the problems that still need to be resolved.
“Tomorrow morning I'll try the soft on the rear. I need to be fast at the start to overtake as many riders as possible, then trying to manage the final laps in the best possible way. The problem is more the race start than the race finish and if I can manage to control tyre wear, I'll be able to put in a good performance. The last ten laps will be fundamental. Notwithstanding all of this, the problem is the setup, which is still very far from optimum and that we need to sort.”
