Maverick Vinales says he is “concentrating” on adapting his riding style to make up for Yamaha's poor acceleration, which has plagued the team during the 2018 MotoGP season.
Both Vinales and teammate Valentino Rossi have spent most of 2018 pleading with Yamaha to introduce a fix to its electronics, as it battles a lack of traction under acceleration.
Sachsenring highlighted this issue last season, with both riders outside of the podium places. In last weekend's German Grand Prix, Vinales shadowed Rossi to complete the rostrum.
Vinales admits the balance of the M1 is “really good” and the chassis is “really competitive”, but says the bike's poor acceleration overshadowed the M1's strong points, and has had to adapt his riding style to compensate.
“I'm not really pleased because it's always the same problem on the electronics, on the exit of the corner, impossible to battle the Ducatis,” Vinales said in Germany.
“So I lose at least seven, eight laps fighting with them when I could have been one second faster.
“Anyway, I'm happy the bike is working well, we have an excellent chassis. We need to keep working, we need to keep working.
“Finally we found a really good balance, I think our bike is really competitive on chassis side.
“But I think in the race I lose my opportunity on the main straight because I could not overtake.
“So, I think we are doing [improvements] step by step, also I'm concentrating on the riding style, trying to supply a little bit what we don't have with the electronics.
“We do it well, but for sure we need to improve.”
Vinales once again struggled for pace in the early laps of the Sachsenring race, but became one of the fastest in the field in the second half.
Despite this being a common occurrence for the Spaniard this season, he admits he “didn't expect” to be struggling so much early in the race.
“Yeah, I prepare really well the last 10, 15 laps,” he added.
“But actually I didn't expect to be seventh [in the opening laps], I expected to be there in the front, trying to battle.
“Anyway, there's time, it's still time to work, try to become even stronger, and I think at the moment we recover the feeling where I can be quick at the end.
“So we need to improve my riding style to be fast at the beginning.”
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