Maverick Vinales’ Qatar MotoGP podium hailed as “real” by KTM boss
Vinales stunned with ride to second in Qatar GP before being penalised
Maverick Vinales’ ride to second in the MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix prior to a penalty has been hailed as “real” by KTM motorsport boss Pit Beirer.
KTM has had a tough start to the 2025 campaign, with persistent vibration problems stunting its hopes of battling for regular podiums and race wins.
After a difficult sprint in Qatar where the four KTM riders’ soft tyre gamble backfired, there was little hope of things improving for the full-length race last Sunday at Lusail.
But Maverick Vinales, who qualified sixth and has impressed with his one-lap speed this year on his switch to the RC16, stunned when he took the lead on lap 11 of 22 and held that position until lap 16.
Despite dropping behind eventual winner Marc Marquez, Vinales was able to hold onto second comfortably and was just 1.8s adrift of the Ducati rider at the chequered flag.
A post-race tyre pressure penalty ultimately dropped him to 14th.
In a behind-the-scenes video issued by MotoGP’s official website, a discussion between KTM management offered an insight into how the brand’s motorsport boss viewed Vinales’ race.
“The performance was real,” Beirer said.
“The whole race, consistent. Not lucky, nothing [worked in our favour].”
Tech3 team boss Herve Poncharal added: “Marc Marquez was like this [head down]. He had to give everything on the last two, three laps to make a break. Bagnaia gave up.”
Vinales’ crew chief Manu Cazeaux is seen in the same video in discussion with his team after notification was given of the tyre pressure investigation.
“I wanted to do a little bit less [pressure] because the risk of being alone was small,” he said, referring to the calculation teams have to make on setting front tyre pressures based on how they think the race might play out. “But in the end we said, ‘Ok, let’s go’.”
Starting from sixth, KTM felt a top five was the absolute maximum on offer after its difficult sprint and would have set Vinales’ tyre pressure to cope with the expected group of riders it thought he would have ahead of him.
Poncharal told Crash.net in an exclusive interview that Vinales let Marquez through in response to a warning on his dashboard about tyre pressures and was ultimately only a couple of laps outside of the 60% distance threshold of running inside the 1.8 bar minimum.
The Tech3 team boss also noted that Marquez pulling away like he did contributed to Vinales’ penalty.
