Described by the entire paddock as the future pearl of MotoGP, Maverick Vinales still lacks some experience. This is visible in normal times where an excess of enthusiasm has sometimes caused him to lose great opportunities, and this is all in all quite normal given his young age.
What was therefore more of a surprise was his lack of results on a wet track which was blatantly revealed last Sunday at Assen. An apparent aquatic aversion shared by Jorge Lorenzo, and which leads roughly to the same results; 9th out of 13, more than 26 seconds behind!
Qualified 12th, the Figueras driver had previously finished his first lap in 18th position to move up to 13th when the red flag was waved.
At Suzuki, we call this a “lack of confidence in the machine”.
Number 25 prefers to talk about the lack of machine settings for the rain. Small nuance which is important…
Maverick Vinales : “Unfortunately, with the rain, it's not complicated for us; we lack experience and today we paid a high price for it. We were quite competitive in the dry but, when the rain came, we couldn't find a correct set-up to have a machine that I was comfortable on. I suffered a lot during the two rounds of the race, and I'm sad about that because I felt we could have had a good chance in the dry. Unfortunately, we still have a lot to learn and improve when we are in rainy conditions. We are all learning, but for sure this result is below our expectations, although being well in the points is a positive thing.”
Excluding press release, the Suzuki driver is however more explicit : “I don't understand, I had no feeling with the bike and it was even slipping in a straight line in fifth or sixth gear.
And when we mention in passing the fact that Maverick Vinales, all categories combined, has never won one of his 16 Grand Prix victories on a track declared wet, the answer is clear: “It has nothing to do with the experience in the rain, because when I was behind Tito Rabat, he could ride, although he also had little experience. However, it still had a reasonable setup. With us, this was not the case, so Aleix also had difficulty.
Maybe the team needs to work on the electronics too, because it can't be possible that we are so strong in the dry and in the rain, no. It was like riding on ice. We have to overcome this, because today we were really bad.”
