Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales blamed his 13th in MotoGP qualifying for Valencia Grand Prix on issues under braking, and branded his situation ‘impossible’ to solve.
Vinales was forced to go into the first part of qualifying for the second time in four races, and once again failed to progress through to Q2 – the Spaniard lining up 13th after a lap of 1m31.030s.
The Spaniard has struggled all weekend to get his factory YZR–M1 stopped, as well as turned, and has been left at a loss as to why his team cannot resolve the problem.
“If you can ask Yamaha, it’s better,” Autosport.com reported the Spaniard as saying.
“I have no explanation. We are in the wrong place, we have the wrong set-up and the more we do, the bike is doing the same.
“The problem comes from the brakes, the brakes are so difficult to stop and then as soon as I lean a little bit I go straight.
“I don’t turn in the corner, I go straight, so this is the biggest issue.
“I had this problem in many, many races, but this is the narrowest track, the track you need to stop more the bike, so the problem is increased.
“When something is not working, if you ride out, if the bike doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.
“You try, but you are in 1m30s you can go 30 low, 30 high, but when you are in the 1m32s it is something impossible that it can work.”
Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi has also struggled for pace for much of the weekend, but was able to progress straight through to Q2 from third practice and qualified seventh – though felt the second row was possible had it not been for a mistake on his final lap.
The Italian believes he is still in for a ‘very hard’ race despite his upturn in form, as his long run pace is still lacking compared to his rivals.
“I’m quite happy, because I was able to arrive directly in the Q2 with a 10th place, and after I improved a little bit in the afternoon.
“In qualifying I was improving my position.
“It was a good lap and I could have stayed on the second row, but unfortunately I made a mistake in the last corner.
“I arrived too fast, so I lost time. Anyway, seventh place is not so bad considering this weekend and our speed.
“I think we will do a very hard race tomorrow because our pace isn’t fantastic, but it’s just the Saturday, so we need to try to do something for tomorrow and we’ll see.”
