In the last round of the MotoGP season, Maverick Viñales secured his first pole position with Aprilia. During the qualifying session for the Valencia GP, he set a new lap record at the Circuito Ricardo Tormo: 1m28.931s.
The Spanish rider admitted in the official broadcast that there had been improvements in his qualifying performance since the Malaysian GP, now having a better understanding of what it takes to be fast on a flying lap:
– It feels that we’ve missed something during the season unfortunately. However it was a really good point to understand the setting and the balance of the bike – especially to give me more room to ride as I like and to push a little bit more. It wasn’t normal that with the new tyre I was hitting always a wall and I couldn’t really make the step, which I was thinking I could do. But after Sepang we’ve understood quite well the balance of the bike, what we need for one lap, and in Qatar and also here we did a really good job.