Maverick Vinales ‘told Yamaha not to touch the bike’ in failed title year
“I told them not to touch the bike”
Maverick Vinales has suggested he would have been MotoGP world champion in 2017 with Yamaha if they ‘didn’t touch’ the 2016 M1 he initially tested.
After just over a season with Suzuki, Vinales signed a two-year deal to join the factory Yamaha squad for his third campaign in the premier class in 2017.
Vinales topped the 2016 Valencia test on that year’s M1 and won the first two races of 2017, before adding a third at the French Grand Prix after a battle with team-mate Valentino Rossi.
The Spaniard led the standings by 17 points after the point, but Vinales wouldn’t win again until the 2018 Australian GP, as he slid to third in the 2017 standings.
Vinales remained with Yamaha until midway through 2021, when his relationship with the brand soured irreparably and he was removed with immediate effect after he was found to have deliberately over-revved his M1’s engine in the Styrian GP.
Speaking in a DAZN documentary about himself, Vinales believes he could have won the title on the M1 he tested at the end of 2016 and pleaded with Yamaha “not to touch it” over the winter.
“When I joined Yamaha, I came in like a rocket,” he said.
“I arrived with a clear idea, a clear objective and that's the only thing I asked Yamaha for: ‘I want to be world champion.
“I don't want to be anything else, don't make me be anything else because I want to be this, I'm not interested in anything else’.
“When I got on the Yamaha at the Valencia test, I fell in love with it. I asked them not to touch it. I wanted this one, which was the bike that Jorge [Lorenzo] left.
“[I told Yamaha] ‘bring me this bike to Qatar, with this I'm going to win the world championship. But when I got to Sepang [for the pre-season test], ‘where is that bike?’
“I won the first race, I won the second, I won at Le Mans, it was one of the best days of my life, I won a battle against my idol, Valentino Rossi.
“But in Barcelona there was a wave of changes. I didn't understand anything.
“I told them not to touch the bike.”
Vinales joined Aprilia for the final rounds of 2021, where he remained until the end of 2024, winning one grand prix in that time.
He joins KTM with the Tech3 squad for 2025, stating about the move: “Now I have come to the conclusion that there are two sides: either you are the challenger or you go to the dark side.
“Either you go to KTM or you go to Ducati.
“At Ducati it is very difficult to win. How are you going to beat the official team?
“It is very complicated, you have the same bike, but not the same weapons. So I only had one option, to go to KTM and be the challenger.”
