RiderTua.com – A perfect weekend for Maverick Vinales at COTA. Achieved the pole position by setting a new track record, a confident victory in the sprint and an impressive performance in Sunday’s main race.
With his victory at the American GP, Vinales became the first rider in the MotoGP era to win with 3 different manufacturers (Suzuki, Yamaha and Aprilia). This is extraordinary, because races like this don’t happen every day. “Today is definitely a big day and the feeling of extraordinary happiness is indescribable,” said the Aprilia factory rider.
Maverick Vinales and Pedro Acosta are the same in tire selection
This victory was not obtained easily. Vinales admitted that at the start, such as during warm-up, he experienced a little problem with the clutch. The start wasn’t as perfect as during the sprint, but it was still okay. The problem is at the first corner. There was some contact and then he lost some positions. But he managed to find a rhythm pretty quickly. He was very focused and quickly caught up to the 4 leading riders.
Aleix Espargaro‘s teammate continued that some overtaking maneuvers were very complicated, especially when fighting Jack Miller, who did strong late braking. But in the end he managed to overtake all the riders in front of him in a controlled manner.
Like Pedro Acosta, Vinales also chose a medium-hard rear tire in the final seconds. Vinales emphasized that medium specification tires are the right choice. “It was an unusual situation. Almost all the riders used soft tires on the grid, then Pedro switched to medium tires and we had the same intuition and it was the right decision,” he said.
Vinales received praise for his various overtaking maneuvers. In the past, factory riders only achieved excellent results when racing freely. “I realized that in the past we had experienced difficulties because we didn’t have the right ‘weapon’ to carry out overtaking maneuvers. We have been working on this for 1 year and now we are at the point where the machine is not only fast, but also allows attack mode,” explained rider nicknamed Top Gun.
“Today we can be proud and celebrate the work we have done. For me, it is the most important victory and therefore a very special day. But we must not forget the importance of consistency. The other riders and teams are also very strong and working hard. So we have to maintain it,” concluded the 28-year-old Spanish rider.
With 2 wins in 24 hours, Vinales rose to 3rd place in the standings by recording 56 points, only 2 points behind Enea Bastianini (Ducati Lenovo) who was in 2nd place.
