Maverick Viñales has not been shy about his criticisms and complaints about his bike, with these becoming more evident than ever since the championship returned in Silverstone, and continuing now in Spielberg. Today he finished 11th in the Sprint and once again had many problems with the RS-GP.
Regarding the start of the race, the Spaniard said that the temperature made everything difficult: ‘I got a bit stuck but honestly that wasn’t the problem [on the first lap]. When you’re behind in the group it’s tough, because the bike doesn’t brake well, the front temperature was very high and on this track with this heat it’s tough’.
And he didn’t hide his frustration and displeasure with his performance at the end of the race, not shying away from showing it inside his garage:
– Of course I was very upset when I entered the garage. Already on Friday we started on the left foot, something broke on the bike and then you try different settings and the bike works very differently on the engine and you can’t try anything and it’s tough because it’s been many races like this. We try to take a step, there’s something and we wonder if it’s the settings, a mechanical failure, we don’t know. As a rider I can’t improve the setup or I can’t try to be better. Basically I’m riding the bike in a similar way to last year because that’s something Aprilia has to do for the future, try to improve in this aspect if they want to take a step forward because it’s very tough. For example on Friday I didn’t even qualify for Q2 because I had a bike that braking didn’t work and so it’s difficult during the weekend, you lose your way because of problems, and it’s difficult as a rider because I can’t get the best out of the bike like that.
Viñales assured that since the start of the season, basically nothing has changed on the bike: ‘I think since the beginning of the season we haven’t changed anything to be honest. Everything was fresh, everything worked and we didn’t touch anything, and now when you don’t have “this” you have “that”. I can’t do anything, honestly I wanted to be faster but it’s very tough. We’re trying very hard but… If you start at the front, there’s no chance with our bike’.