Though it’s still the beginning of the season and the first race of 2019 MotoGP hasn’t even started. The Yamaha team seems to have something that makes rider Maverick Vinales believe that they have what it takes to win the title.
Testing throughout the winter has been going great according to the enthusiastic rider who has completed multiple laps at Valencia over the off-season. At Jerez, he managed to pull some dramatic shifts on the timesheet over both days, starting with the first day in fourth and bumping up to third on the second test day.
It was mostly the long-runs that got Maverick excited about the season to come as he and Rossi were both finding the perfect tune for the 2019 engines. While Maverick seems to be all for the new changes and confident that they have a great chance to claim another title for Yamaha. His teammate, Valentino Rossi has his doubts. The previous world champion says it’s not enough to win and that they need more, which was announced after the first day of testing.
By the second test day, Vinales remained stocked with the performance of the bike, quoting that he is “quite happy”. By the end of testing, he was more excited about the season ahead. Pointing out his impressive times with used tires and giving him even more reason to believe he can lead the grid in the 2019 races to come.
Maverick went on to explain that he is more than pleased with just one-tenth behind the leader with used tires. He used to get two or even three tenths after only 30 laps before. He also included that he feels perfect about the bike and that it’s good enough to grab the title for the year ahead.
Soon after the comments above, he added that Yamaha still has room for improvement, especially when it comes to traction, which is the biggest downfall for the team at the moment. However, with the impressive lap times, he is pleased with the bike’s performance as it shows progress and that it’s running well.
He suggested that they start with mechanical grip and then only move onto the electronics of the bike. He is pleased with how the electronics are working and how well they deliver traction control while still offering brilliant power.
He went on to say that the top speed of the bike is also a bit of a problem, which once again relates to the mechanical grip. Maverick says if he doesn’t get out of the corner fast enough, there’s no way he can overtake. Its why he recommends the team looks at mechanical grip first.
Even with the negative points, he is still looking forward to improvements over the weeks to come before the first race. Giving the team more than enough time to improve the grip and provide a bike that has what it takes to win!