Vinales brands M1 as the ‘best bike at the moment’

Movistar Yamaha’s new boy Maverick Vinales ended his second official pre-season test top of the time sheets once again after a productive final day in Sepang, leading him to brand the 2017 YZR-M1 as the ‘best bike at the moment.’

The 2013 Moto3 world champion spent this week mostly focussing on race pace, completing 178 laps across all three days of the test, as well as carrying out back-to-back comparisons between the M1’s new frame and radical, ‘winglet’ concealing fairing.

The final day saw Vinales put in 72 laps on his Yamaha, posting a best time of 1m59.368s on his 40^th tour to go just over a tenth clear of the field. Following yesterday’s running the Spaniard admitted that he was surprised at his pace, and was once again amazed at the performance of the M1 at the end of Wednesday’s session.

“Today again, like yesterday, we worked mainly on the race pace,” he said.

“We improved the pace a lot. I am quite surprised I could attain a 1’59 and I am really happy, because it was very fast and the bike was going well. At the moment it is difficult to say which aspect of the bike surprised me most.”

Having gone so well on the bike during the test, Vinales found no difficulty in labelling the M1 as the best package on the grid currently. Furthermore, and rather worryingly for the rest, he reckons that Yamaha will bring an even better bike to the Phillip Island test later in the month.

“We are developing the bike, trying to better the package that we have, and I think for sure we have the best bike at the moment for one lap and on race distance. Step by step we are choosing the best things.

“We tried many things during this week, so I think we can have a better package for the next test in Australia. We will bring many good things to Phillip Island.”

Team-mate Valentino Rossi enjoyed his busiest day on the bike this week after completing 62 laps, as he too focussed on long run pace. The Italian ended the session fifth fastest on a 1m59.589s, and was pleased with the progress he and the team made this week.

“I’m quite happy, it was a good test, because my lap times were OK and 1’59.589 is not so bad and we are all very close at the top,” said Rossi.

“In general, the feeling with the bike is positive and today we also found something interesting to further improve the bike. At the end it was a challenging test but we found something positive.”