Maverick Viñales 6th in Qatar GP

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales battled for all he was worth and rode a superb catch-up race from 15th to 6th place, earning himself some crucial championship points.

Viñales made a cautious start, dropping back from 12th on the grid to 15th place in the opening laps, but that certainly didn‘t mean he was out for the count. After three laps, he got into the rhythm and started his charge. He was running the same pace as the leading group and as a result he barged through the rider field.

With Alex Rins and Jorge Lorenzo crashing out with 10 laps to go, the number-25 rider breached into the top-10. He then picked off Jack Miller on the next lap and also overtook Andrea Iannone for eighth place one lap later.

Viñales had his sights set on the front group. They were fighting some 2.5s ahead of him, but his pace was still red hot, as he kept posting times in the 1‘55s. With three laps to go the Spaniard tapped onto the back of Pedrosa. A lap later he overtook his compatriot and also breezed past Zarco. He gave Danilo Petrucci a run for his money for fifth place, but he ultimately had to settle for sixth position, 3.888s from the front.

Today’s race results see Viñales secure sixth place in the standings, 15 points from the front. Yamaha is in third place in the Constructor classification, nine points from first, and Movistar Yamaha MotoGP are in second place in the Team title challenge, with three points to the top of the rankings.

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team will be back in action in three weeks’ time at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit for the Gran Premio Motul de la República Argentina, held from April 6th – 8th.

Maverick Viñales:

“In today‘s race I felt really good with the bike, better than I did before. We followed the direction of how I wanted the bike and we improved so much, especially our rhythm. Now that we have done that, we know we have a good bike and we can focus on improving other things. Honestly, during the tests I didn‘t try many starts, I was focused on the bike, so today‘s start was bad. However, now we‘ve recovered the feeling with the bike – especially for the race – we can work on other areas. We found a good set-up, but we can still improve and match the electronics more to my riding style, and we can also work on the starts. When you finish a race like today‘s, you wish that the next GP would be held the next weekend. We‘re quite motivated. I felt that, if I had been more towards the front today, I could have had a chance to win the race. I’m happy the team did such a great job, especially on Saturday in the afternoon. We found something good for our riding style and that‘s perfect.”