Maverick Vinales explains “change of direction” issues at Assen

Maverick Vinales possessed the biggest threat to Ducati at the Dutch MotoGP as he battled the likes of Enea Bastianini, Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio for the podium.

Vinales ended the race in fifth following a post-race penalty for Marquez which dropped him to P10.

But Vinales did not have the smoothest of races as he pushed to his limit from lap one.

Vinales appeared to have a pace advantage in certain areas of the track and there did not seem to be any issues battling his rivals.

But the Aprilia rider was not without problems as he suffered from severe shaking in the high speed corners.

Vinales said: “I had trouble all race. I don’t know if it’s because the wind changed but all the time when I changed direction from turn 14 to 15 I had huge shaking on the bike.

“I was losing a lot in these corners. It seems like the strength of our bike which is changing direction was the weakest point compared to the competitors.

“We are not satisfied because we want to fight for the win but we are happy about the level because we were the only one challenging the Ducati.

“I saw Pedro [Acosta] was quite close but with a different tyre. To be honest, I did a race at the maximum from lap one.”

Vinales was the only factory Aprilia rider in action after Aleix Espargaro was ruled out with injury.

Test rider Lorenzo Savadori also elected not to take part in the grand prix following his crash in the sprint which left him with back fractures.