Vinales ‘changes everything’ but problems persist

Maverick Viñales is still seeking the light through all the gloom after a disastrous day of MotoGP qualifying at the Red Bull Ring resulted in continued struggles with machine performance and reliability issues.

After team-mate Valentino Rossi failed to navigate a path through Q1, the 23-year old could only manage a distant eleventh in the Q2 shootout. For the one-time championship hopeful, the alarming aspect of this showing was his placing came as little surprise. In the weekend’s other dry sessions he placed tenth and 13^th.

Kouji Tsuya, project leader of Yamaha’s MotoGP operation, made an unprecedented public apology to the two Movistar riders on Saturday afternoon, in which he revealed a sensor issue was also ever-present during Viñales’ on-track appearances.

“For Maverick, today and on Friday as well, we have some sensor problem on our bike,” said Tsuya. “We disturbed Maverick's concentration too much, so now still we are investigating how we can solve this problem for tomorrow.

"I just want to say sorry to [the] riders, not to [be able to] concentrate to go faster and to get a better result for qualifying. Also we have some technical problems with Maverick and some missed performance now.”

A disgruntled Viñales then offered, “Well, actually this weekend we had more problems in the electronics. I don’t know why it was not working well on track, the bike. But anyway we hope to sort it for tomorrow. It’s an important race and important to be into the top ten and making points for the championship.

Had anything changed from the first day of free practice? “No,” he responded curtly. “Finally we have the same troubles on the bike. So we could not see where to improve. Let’s see tomorrow. I hope we can fix it in the warm-up. At least the bike works well all the laps.

“I don’t know, honestly [what’s causing the mechanical issue]. I don’t know. We are trying to understand where was the problem. We change everything trying to solve it and we’ll see in the morning if we can fix it.

“If I knew I would solve it! But honestly I don’t know. What I know is that it’s not working well. Already last year I struggled so much. I discussed so much the electronics and how the power arrives.

“But anyway, we need to focus so much on the next moves on the bike. Let’s see if we can improve it. For sure we hope we can improve it for the next race.”

And what if this issue isn’t remedied ahead of Sunday’s 28-lap race? “I don’t know. I will try to make my best as always and at least try to be in the top ten. It’s going to be very important for the points of the championship. I cross this race and then focus on Silverstone.”