Maverick Viñales led yesterday’s MotoGP test day in Valencia with a lap time of 1m29.253s. The rider was only 28 thousandths faster than Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM), a performance that didn’t surprise him.
Speaking to the press, the Aprilia Spanish rider said: ‘It wasn’t a surprise that we are fast – we still hold the lap record of the track. But we worked on a very smart way, trying to understand very well the direction for next year. We got a few different swingarms just to understand the direction and actually it was very good because we found a lot of positives in one swingarm – that’s huge’.
According to Viñales, there were more essential aspects in this test, from which he came out with the feeling of riding better: ‘Then another important things were the wings, a different shape on the tank, a different shape on the seat… it was good to confirm because I needed to feel more comfortable on the bike and I also think I did a step because I can ride better the bike and I can put better pressure on the tyres – so I can be more precise’.
The #12 also talked about the progress made in one of the areas where he has a deficit of performance: ‘Another important thing was improve the start, I think this is the main priority and we improved a lot compared with previous weekends. That’s really good to understand already now’.