Maverick Viñales to Start Austrian GP from fourth row

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Maverick Viñales put up a fight, trying a two-stop strategy in Q2, and secured 11th place on the grid for tomorrow‘s eyetime Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich.

Vinales put his head down straight out of the gate in Q2. He quickly left the box to slip into sixth position and immediately headed back to pit lane with more than ten minutes on the clock.

He had been pushed back to 11th place as he headed back out less than two minutes later, starting his second charge. He set a 1’24.831s but didn‘t move up the order. He hurried back to pit lane to make a second stop with four and a half minutes remaining.

With two and a half minutes left to leave his mark, and now in 12th position, the Spaniard continued his challenge. There was just enough time left for two last flyers. A new personal best of 1‘24.284s put him in 11th place. He followed it up with a promising start to his final lap but was ultimately unable to improve and had to settle for a starting place in the middle of the fourth row.

 Maverick Viñales:

“Actually, this weekend we have some more problems with the electronics and the bike was not working well on the track. Anyway, we hope to solve it for tomorrow. It is an important race and it’s important to be inside the top-10 and get points for the championship. We have the same situation as yesterday, we couldn’t find improvements. So, let’s see tomorrow if we can fix it in the Warm Up. For the race the soft tyre is too soft for us. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’ll do my best as always. We’ll get through this race and then we’ll focus on Silverstone. We’re a team, we have to keep pushing and working. I hope Yamaha can respond, so we can be stronger.”