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The forced break in the world of two wheels continues, even for the best in the world. Maverick Vinales for his part is at home in Andorra, and together with Valentino Rossi and the journalist Matthew Birt he told us about how he is experiencing this particular situation.
“I’m at home in Andorra, everything is going well. The recovery from injury (from a motocross incident – Ed.) is perfect. I’m nearly at 100% so I can start training right now. At the moment I am resting a lot, enjoying the time and can’t wait to get back on the bike: I’m not used to so many days at home, I’m already bored! I especially I like it when we travel, it’s a style of life. But now it feels so strange because I have time for everything, normally we are all the time running with luggage and clothes, but everything is now organized.”
The only race the Spanish rider has taken part in this year was the virtual race, where he went really well.
“The eSports is complicated, I got more nervous than in the normal race weekend. I’m practising a lot, and spend time on the PlayStation, also because I was injured. I hope Nakagami’s behaviour is only in the eSports race! (laughs)”
Obviously, there was also the possibility to talk about the future, and Maverick’s decision to stay in Yamaha.
“I considered the opportunity to go away because the results were not what I was expecting and able to do, but last year we made a good job, and Yamaha gave me a lot of support and confidence, so it wasn’t a good moment to go away. I needed to continue with Yamaha in the same way because when the Yamaha is working well, we are hard to beat. I’m a little bit disappointed that Valentino will not be my team-mate, because I have a good relationship with him, but now we need to keep working. The bike is there, and I want to repeat those great moments with Yamaha.”
Maverick will no longer have Valentino Rossi in the box in the future, but he was full of words of praise for his team-mate.
“We both passed through difficult times in Yamaha - the last part of ‘17 and 2018 - and Valentino was always with a smile, I could not understand why. I learnt to be happy from him, even if the things are not going the way you like.”
Always remaining on the subject of the future, the Spaniard talked about what he thought of the rest of the season, but he ruled out the idea of a double race on the same circuit.
“The championship has to move on for many reasons, the manufacturers need it and the riders need to make laps on the track. For me, it’s good if we can make the second part of the season, a double race can be interesting, but we are not used to it, the perfect situation is to race the second part of the season. As for getting back on the bike, you don’t lose the feeling despite two months without the bike. Maybe you can take one or two laps, but I think that as soon as the tyres are at the right temperature, you can go fast for sure.”
Maverick concluded by remembering one of his favourite weekends, the one back in 2017 in Argentina.
“I would like to relive 2017 at Termas de Rio Hondo. It was a perfect weekend: I started sixth, but I knew I had the pace to get to the front and win. It was a moment I couldn’t believe and so on the podium, I thought ‘It's your dream, enjoy it’".
