---
title: "Wrong strategy costs Vinales front row"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2016/11/12/wrong-strategy-costs-vinales-front-row/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Lewis Duncan"
section: "MotoGP News"
published: "2016-11-12T20:45:52Z"
modified: "2016-11-12T20:46:14Z"
---

# Wrong strategy costs Vinales front row

Team Suzuki Ecstar will begin his final race with the Japanese manufacturer from fourth place, though felt the front row was achievable had it not been for an error in strategy.

The Spaniard looked strong ahead of qualifying, ending Friday third fastest on combined times and was second in the third free practice this morning. Confident of a front row start, things didn’t quite pan out how they should have for Vinales.

His opening gambits in the second part of qualifying saw him troubling third spot. Instead of doing the traditional two-stop strategy, Suzuki opted to try three and this proved to be a misdirection as this hindered the Spaniard. Vinales needs a couple of laps to bring the tyres up to temperature in order to extract the maximum from them, but was unable to do this due to the time required to carry out a three-stopper.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/11/622406142.jpg)

In the end, Vinales managed a strong 1m30.276s, though this was only good enough for fourth. Disappointed to miss the front row, Vinales is still positive over his prospects for tomorrow. Starting at the head of the second row gives him the chance to run with the leaders should he get off the line well, and the Spaniard reckons that he does have the pace to challenge for the podium.

“The qualifying didn’t go as I was expecting, we had the potential for the first row but unfortunately we didn’t take out all our best,” he said.

“We decided to try a new strategy, with three runs instead of the usual two, but it takes me some time to warm up the tyre in the proper way so in the last attempt, with only one lap to go, I couldn’t improve as I wanted.

“Anyway, the day has been positive, this morning I could be fast and then in FP4 we tested a very good pace. I’ll have the chance of being in the front in the beginning if I make a good start tomorrow, and I’ll probably be able to exploit the positive pace I have.”