In the first free practice session, Maverick Vinales mainly focused on adjusting his Suzuki for the particular weather conditions of the moment, with only 12° of temperature for the track. The operation was moderately successful, with an honest sixth position, but a fairly significant gap with the leader Jorge Lorenzo which amounted to eight tenths.
It was undoubtedly a lot, and Vinales with the help of his team made clear progress in the afternoon. A few minutes from the end of FP2, Maverick occupied second position, two tenths behind then leader Marc Marquez. In the very last minutes, he and Marc could not resist the final assault of Jorge Lorenzo, but Vinales managed to maintain third position, 0.312 behind the Mallorcan.
Maverick can therefore hope for a place on the first row if circumstances are favorable to him this Saturday. According to him, “Today I felt really good with the bike and third place is a good result for the first day. We're already shooting at a good pace, so it's a good feeling. We prove that our performance is at the top. We are constantly improving and being among the best. We still have some adjustments that can be applied. The Valencia circuit is very different from that of Malaysia where we were for the last race: here, the track is much narrower and with tight corners, where the machine must be fast in curves and when accelerating. We still need to find better efficiency on this point, because our machine prefers fast and smooth corners, but we have room for improvement, and we are also already among the fastest.
