It’s with some curiosity that Maverick Viñales sets off for another round of MotoGP, this time returning to Losail. As well as showing a desire to realise how much faster he can be, the Spaniard also spoke about the busy schedule and admitted he wasn’t happy.
The Aprilia Racing rider began by analysing the weekend ahead: ‘I’m excited to work, to push as hard as I can and that’s clear, and to understand more and more things, especially as it’s the last two races and you always want to help and get information. I’m curious to see how much we can improve on last year’.
Asked how the RS-GP will react to the tarmac: ‘I don’t know, it’s going to be a lottery. I don’t know if the others have been on the track, with street bikes or not, but what I see on TV is that the track is very dirty, we’ll have to see. The first few days will be about cleaning the track, at least that’s how I understand it. It’s going to be tough in terms of set-up and it’s not going to be easy to get everything right, but at the end of the day there are 18 races, so the bike is already set up and we have to focus on the (main) job, which is the tyres‘.
On the tight schedule that has forced him to travel a lot, Viñales was clear: ‘I’m not happy because we have families, but that’s what they pay you for, isn’t it? For me travelling… in the end the jetlag… You go to Malaysia, Australia, it’s a lot for me, at the end of the day this is our job and we have to do it in the best way. For me with the Sprint it’s very tough, and race by race it’s getting tougher. We’ll see next year. Maybe this was a year of training and the next one will be better. We’ll see’.