Maverick Vinales described his maiden Yamaha win in last night’s Qatar Grand Prix as ‘incredible’, not least because he came into the event with more pressure than he had been used to in MotoGP.
The Spanish rider spent the entire winter dominating proceedings, topping all four official pre-season tests as he prepared for his Yamaha debut. That trend continued into the Qatar weekend, Vinales taking his first premier class pole by half a second.
At the start, Vinales played it cautious, opting to bide his time and not push too hard in the tricky conditions as he knew the race would eventually come to him.
“The first laps were very challenging, that track was so slippery and I wanted to take it easy and stay calm,” the Spaniard said.
“I knew I had a good pace, so I tried to push at the very end of the race. There were many crashes in front, so I waited for the right moment and finally we took the victory.”
With 13 laps to go, Vinales began to up his pace and had cut the gap to the top three to just under a second, closing it entirely two laps later.
At half distance Vinales pounced on compatriot Marc Marquez into the first corner, and immediately ate into race leader Andrea Dovizioso’s advantage.
Using the superior edge grip and cornering performance of his Yamaha in the third sector, Vinales was able to demolish Dovizioso’s lead with six laps to go, though the grunt of the Ducati proved to be problematic.
Dovizioso was also running the soft rear tyre and looking after it, giving him an added boost under acceleration. Vinales knew that his strengths in the third sector would be crucial to building the buffer he needed on the final lap to keep the Italian at bay.
“The third sector was honestly so crucial, because Andrea used the soft tyres, so he collected the benefits and could accelerate better all the time and he didn’t waste the tyre,” Vinales explained.
“It was hard to beat him, but in sector three I was really strong the whole weekend. I set my best sector three on the last lap and it was the minimum to take the victory.”
Vinales’ victory makes him just the fifth rider since the introduction of the four-stroke MotoGP era to win races with two different manufacturers, joining an esteemed list of team-mate Valentino Rossi, Dovizioso, Max Biaggi and Casey Stoner.
The Spaniard also became the second youngest rider in history to win with separate manufacturers, a record still held by the late, great Mike Hailwood, who won for Norton and MV Agusta.
“The feeling when I crossed the line was incredible. As the first victory with Yamaha, it was even more important than the first MotoGP victory, because there was so much pressure.
“We were leading all the tests, so I’m happy we how I handled the pressure and also the team worked really good.”
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