Maverick Vinales achieves “more than we expected” in Malaysian MotoGP

Seventh place for Maverick Vinales in the Malaysian MotoGP was better than he had expected before the race.

Vinales perhaps benefitted from the non-starting factory KTMs of Brad Binder and Jack Miller after their involvement in the crash that brought out the red flag on lap one of the first start in Sepang.

But the Spanish rider was in any case happy with his race, and didn’t seem to suffer as much with the heat generated by the RS-GP as some of his fellow Aprilia riders, notably Aleix Espargaro and Raul Fernandez who finished 13th and 16th, respectively.

“It was hot, a good race,” Vinales said. “Far from the top, but consistent, a consistent race.

“To be honest, P7 was more than what we expected, so this is really good; I could ride quite good through all the race, try to do the rhythm, try to don’t f*ck the tyres.

“So, I was controlling a lot, and nothing else. I think that was the maximum from what we have, and we need to continue.

“But the consistency is good: we are doing sixth, seventh, eighth consistently on the races so we need to keep going.”

Braking has often been an issue for Aprilia in MotoGP recently, but choosing the largest front brake disc available on Sunday helped Vinales, as well as an update from Aprilia.

“We used the 355mm [front] brake,” he said, “and also one specific thing that we couldn’t bring that maintains the tyre a little bit cooler, so was more grippy.

“[I made] less mistakes, so I could be more precise, so it was better.”