Maverick Viñales finished third in the MotoGP Dutch Grand Prix Sprint race. The rider started and finished the race in the same position, despite having to recover after losing ground at the start. Ahead of him were Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati), who were out of reach.
The Spanish Aprilia rider had mixed feelings after the race – happy with his performance but not entirely satisfied with the result as he aimed to fight for more against the superior Ducatis:
– It’s the maximum we have on the start, so it was good I only lost one position. This is the maximum of what we have, but we need to be happy. Obviously we are not satisfied because we want to fight for the race because we are ambitious, but we need to be happy. We had a good pace, a good potential. They were better today, we need to try to make a step tomorrow. I was lapping 1m31.8s and still they were going away, for me it was quite surprising. But it is how it is; the only thing we can do is to stay positive, to stay focused and try to create the opportunity again.
Faced with a comparison with his times with Yamaha, where he also wasn’t satisfied after a podium in Assen, Viñales explained it’s a different situation: ‘It’s a bit different. I’m the first non-Ducati, so we’ll see if I win this championship [laughts]. But it’s very different. Is not that I’m not happy; I’m not satisfied – I want more and I think we can do more. But this is a point of view, because I think if you ask me, «Were you on the limit today?», I say, «Yes, I was riding the bike even over the limit and over the lap times the bike could do». I’m trying to help the team to make the next step, to pass this wall, that at the end is the reference of the other guys. The bike is nice, I like riding it, but it’s not enough. We are going to try tomorrow’.