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| Maverick Vinales “Riding Like the Top Guys” Despite Struggling with Highsides in Aragon Qualifying. |
Maverick Vinales had a pretty solid run in the Aragon MotoGP Sprint, finishing seventh—about 7.2 seconds behind the winner, Marc Marquez. Not bad, considering the rough start he had.
In the first four laps, Vinales lost a bunch of time—like 5.6 seconds—mainly because qualifying didn’t go his way, and he lost ground right from the opening lap.
But once he got some clear air, Vinales really showed what he’s capable of. He posted the third-fastest lap, only behind Marc and Alex Marquez, and ended up just 2.5 seconds behind Fermin Aldeguer, who grabbed the last podium spot.
“I don’t really know why, but during qualifying, we ended up on two tires that just didn’t work well for me,” Vinales explained.
“We have all the data, and it’s pretty clear. Compared to yesterday, the differences were tiny — like 0.1 seconds here and there — but that would’ve been enough to get me starting in P4.”
He went on to talk about the scary highsides he nearly had during the warm-up laps: “On the out lap, I almost highsided twice. I thought maybe I just needed to warm up the tires better. But on the first and second laps, boom, highside again.”
“I believed the second tire had a lot of potential — especially on the right side, it felt amazing,” he added.
“But then at turn 10, highside. Turn 17, highside again. That cost me about three-tenths, which could’ve put me on the second row.”
Still, once the race started, Vinales found a good rhythm. “Lap 9 was a 47.1, which felt really strong. Whenever I had some space, I was riding like the top guys. I caught up to Diggia and the group ahead, so the bike was definitely working well.”
“And that’s a positive sign for tomorrow because I feel really good on the medium rear tire. We won’t change anything for Sunday.”
Team manager Nicolas Goyon gave some encouraging words too: “Maverick’s back to the level he was at before Silverstone, but more importantly, he’s happy with the bike setup and how it handles. So we’re confident he can keep building on this for the rest of the weekend.”
On the KTM side, Pedro Acosta led the pack in fifth place, just 1.1 seconds ahead of Vinales. Meanwhile, teammate Enea Bastianini had a tougher day, finishing 17th.
“It was another tough day for us. We tried pushing more in qualifying to get closer to the front, but nothing really clicked,” Bastianini said, still struggling with his RC16 when releasing the front brake in corners.
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