Maverick Vinales reckons his victory in the season opening Qatar Grand Prix shows Yamaha have done a “good job” over the winter having suffered several false starts in recent years.
Vinales recovered from a poor start from the front row-in which he dropped all the way to ninth- to a ninth career premier class win after 22 tours of the Losail International Circuit, having had to pass all three Ducati’s expected to be the favourites for victory having won the past two Qatar GP’s.
Yamaha showed potential across the five pre-season test days-having topped two of the outings- held at the Qatari venue as well as during practice and qualifying for the season opener, though the slightly underpowered M1’s were expected to struggle to match Ducati on race day due to the Desmosedici’s significant power advantage.
The red rockets instead struggled to keep their tyres alive until the end, allowing Vinales to utilise the sheer cornering ability of his Yamaha to win by just over a second ahead of Pramac’s Johann Zarco.
Vinales says he is “really satisfied” to be able to use the strengths of his machine to claim victory, though accepted Yamaha had to work “very hard” to find a way to overcome Ducati’s advantage from standing starts-Jorge Martin having moved from 14th to fourth while both Zarco and Jack Miller also went forwards from their grid positions.
“I am really satisfied because at the end we managed to do it (win), though it was not easy here in Doha with the long main straight,” explained Vinales to BT Sport following the encounter.
“It was never impossible but I said yesterday we had to play our cards, today we played them well and I felt good on the bike so overall I think we can be quite happy and pleased.
“For the next step we know the direction to go in to make the bike better and we’ll try and make more progress for the next race.
“We know we have to improve (on starts), right now Yamaha is working very hard to bring something to the next races in order to start faster because Ducati are unbelievable so we’ll see.
“I’ll try a bit better to play my cards in the next race, but overall we did a good job so today we’ll enjoy and tomorrow we’ll work again.”
Vinales added that “everything went as planned” in his quest to cut through the pack to reach the leadership, the Spaniard believing that Yamaha’s performance shows that it has done a “good job” over the winter compared to previous campaigns.
“Everything went as planned, I stayed a bit too long behind Pecco, I tried once and was even pushing him forward but in the end I got him and am really pleased to start the year like this, it shows we’ve done a good job in the winter this year which in previous years was difficult,” continued Vinales.
“Sometimes I could see that I could make a mistake and then make up all the gap in sector four (to Fabio Quartararo), I don’t know why but I was very strong there, particularly Turn 15, then after I said to myself ‘Its possible Maverick overtake Fabio and then in 1 or 2 laps take Johann and Pecco and we have a chance to win.’”
