Vinales surprised by “disaster” grip changes with Yamaha

Maverick Vinales endured a rollercoaster Friday at Jerez with his Monster Yamaha after his positive feeling from the opening practice disappeared into “being a disaster” in the afternoon session as grip and conditions changed.

The Spanish rider enjoyed a strong start to his Spanish MotoGP weekend by going third fastest in FP1, within two-tenths of pace-setting Honda pair Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo, but in the afternoon session he failed to better his earlier pace which saw him fade to sixth place on the combined results.

Vinales put the drop in pace down to the rise in track temperature and change in grip levels at Jerez in the afternoon which triggered familiar problems for the Spanish rider on his factory Yamaha.

“From FP1 to FP2, the conditions changed so much and the bike went from going quite good to being a disaster,” Vinales said. “So we need to keep working, we need to try to find more stability through the practice, and to see.

“The grip level here is really good, just in the afternoon, I don’t know why, I couldn’t be fast in the initial part of the practice. Then we modified the bike a little bit, and it was not so bad. But we need to keep working and try to understand the way to be equal in cold and hot temperatures.”

Vinales placed the problem area directly on the electronics set-up with his Yamaha, where he fears he was losing “one second” between the two sessions and accepts a compromise must be used for this weekend.

With setup changes proving effective during FP2, Vinales found comfort with the solutions but concedes more will be needed to completely sooth his concerns.

“For me, we suffer a lot on the electronics,” he said. “When we lose grip, we don’t lose two tenths or three tenths, we lose one second.

“It’s very difficult to find a setup, because in the morning it’s working well, in the afternoon it’s very difficult to go with it. So it's difficult to find a compromise on the bike.

“Anyway, we worked hard, we made five or six runs in FP2, and finally we found something better, but still we need much more to be competitive. We need to keep working, luckily, it’s only Friday so we need to keep improving the bike.”

Vinales also accepts the problems were not apparent during last November’s test at Jerez, held in much colder conditions given the time of year, and has called on Yamaha to continue to develop its MotoGP package to solve the problem.

“It’s strange, the test was fine, but also it’s true that the grip was very good,” he explained. “We ran many, many laps all together, so there was a lot of rubber on the track. So maybe it’s that. But it’s always the same issue year by year. So we need to change.

“We need to find the way to be more equal when it’s cold and when it’s hot, because in the morning, I felt really good. I could ride quite fast, quite consistent, it was only FP1 so I was not pushing at my best, so it was not so bad.

“But then in the afternoon the conditions changed so much. It’s difficult, it’s very difficult to be always the same, to be the same for all the laps. I did many mistakes during the lap, and that's not very good.”