MotoGP, France J1, Maverick Viñales (KTM/8): “Our pace today was on par with second place”

Having made a mistake at the end of the session while he was second, Maverick Viñales is aiming for the first two rows in qualifying tomorrow.

From Qatar, Maverick Vinales continues to compete at the forefront. Qualifying in sixth position twice, he has had two solid Grands Prix, including a first podium with KTM (which he ultimately lost due to a penalty) and a fourth place at Jerez. While adjustments are needed on his machine, which he has not yet fully mastered, he is showing consistent speed.

In the top 10 since this morning's FP1 at Le Mans, he progressed to eighth place in Practice this afternoon, despite a crash. The Tech3 driver sees the positives in his performance, and believes he had the pace to finish in front. He was in second place when he crashed 12 minutes from the checkered flag.

“It was a good day. Every day I'm learning the bike a little more and facing different challenges. I need to adjust my riding style, but it's good because, in any case, I can be fast. Before, I was maybe struggling a little with braking. Now, even though I'm struggling, I'm fast, so it's fantastic. I'm a little too sideways in some parts of the track, that's why I crashed. We're confident and focused for the work to be done tomorrow.”, he said during his debriefing.

“In the first run, I was trying something out. When I came back for the second run, I went back to the basic version, and I regained confidence, understanding the bike better. The base of the bike is the best we have, so we have to play our cards with it and see what we can do. We have to adjust a couple of things, but our pace today was on par with the second, to be honest. We have to do the perfect lap and put the bike at the front because the pace is there.”

From what he showed today, Casa Particular in Viñales aims as well as in the last two Grands Prix for tomorrow's Q2: "Our goal is to get the bike onto the first two rows of the grid."

Results of the Practice of the French Grand Prix:

Classification credit: MotoGP.com