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Don’t be fooled by his 4th time and the almost half a second behind Marquez. Viñales simply did not pull out the stops at Phillip Island. The Spaniard had other plans for his day and he just postponed the time attack.
“I didn’t put the new tyre on in the last 10 minutes, so I dropped back a bit. If I had, I think I would have been able to stay out front, but it wasn’t part of the plan - Maverick explains – When I tried to do the time there was a lot of wind, but in the third sector, where it wasn’t blowing, I was the fastest.”
Like his teammate Valentino, his priority is also to approach Marquez’s pace.
“The important thing is the pace. Marquez is very fast, so we need to improve. We are not far off, but I am still not happy - he admits - Today we did a good job, especially with used gyres, trying some new setups and that is why I did not try to have a perfect bike for the flying lap.”
After all, let’s not forget that the M1 is a new bike for Viñales and he still needs to learn how to exploit it fully in any condition.
“This is more difficult track with the Yamaha. It feels different to me. Suzuki was more agile and made it simpler to hold the perfect line. I still need to change my references - was his comparison with the old bike - We still need to improve, but we have grip, which is what I’m interested in, and I think that today I was also able to maintain a good pace in the afternoon.”
Maverick is happy with his progress.
“I feel more at ease on the bike compared with Sepang and we are improving in a few aspects, like with the electronics - he continues - We are still doing some tests on the frame and there are some changes there for the chassis architecture. Actually, I really tried a lot of things today. I didn’t even know what I had on the bike (he laughs). Joking aside, it was a very useful day.”
