Vinales: I feel constant grip, all the time

As if eradicating a number of last year’s weak points wasn’t enough cause for celebration, Maverick Viñales was intent on proving his speed has not diminished over the winter months, as he topped the second day of MotoGP testing at Sepang.

At 16:30 local time, Viñales’ work for the day appeared to be complete. A long run through the hottest stretch of the afternoon – 13:30 to 15:00 – confirmed his impressions from day one that Yamaha has made big strides with its 2018 bike.

The 23-year old reported that those traction issues in low-grip conditions that plagued periods of his ’17 campaign were not apparent in the punishing afternoon sun. “I feel constant grip,” he said. “From lap one to twenty. That’s the positive thing.”

With his main objective seemingly ticked off, the Catalan took to the track soon after his dealings with the press. No sooner had team-mate Valentino Rossi bettered Dani Pedrosa’s quickest time from day one, than Viñales went even faster, his 1m 59.355s lap nudging the Italian into second by 0.035s.

And his work for the week is by no means finished. Viñales, who has continued working with the same chassis spec from a private test here last November, expects to conduct one full race simulation on Tuesday, if not two.

“At the moment in the plan is to find the best solution when it's hot conditions,” he said. “For sure tomorrow I'm going to do one race simulation and if I have enough power, two! To try the different tyres.

“Honestly we've been working well, especially 1:30-3pm which is the important time to be fast and constant. Tomorrow we will try to improve the electronics. That is the place we need to adjust more. And then try different set-ups trying to be more competitive.”

On the chassis situation, he continued: “There are many. Also from last year. But I concentrate on this one. I feel good and as I said we have to improve the electronics because for me last year we had issues and this year I want to prepare really well during the pre-season.

“At the moment the lap times are not so bad. Let's see when we want to make another step on the lap time. Looks the bike for one lap is really good, we can see with Valentino, so that's positive and makes me calm.

“Also makes my job a little bit easier to know the bike is fast for one lap. I concentrate really well to make 20 laps in a good shape and constant, even pushing more at the end. Let's see tomorrow if I can do the race simulation well.”

Viñales’ response to a question on how his ’18 bike differs to what he rode last year was perhaps most revealing: “Everything,” he exclaimed. “Everything is different, I mean my riding style is not so different. I ride in the same way.

“But just I feel that the chassis understands more the tyre. The way that the tyres slide. I feel constant grip all the time. From lap 1-20 and that's the positive things of these two days.”

On the continued work on the bike’s electronics, Viñales said, “Well I'm missing the first part of acceleration. I wanted to try to make it very, very smooth and then the delivery of the power came step by step.

“Now we have smoother at the beginning but it comes very fast. We are trying to make a more linear and progressive bike. It's not bad for one lap but for 20 the tyre life goes down very quick. That's why I want to prepare really well at 2pm the electronics, just to improve.”

Aside from the engine, chassis and electronics, both Yamaha riders sampled the factory’s new aerodynamics package for the year ahead. Viñales found the bodywork - refined from what was debuted at Valencia - to be of great benefit in acceleration areas, and believes it could prove useful at tracks like Le Mans and Austria.

“Well the new fairing improved on acceleration,” Viñales revealed. “The last sector I improved a lot. It's going to be important for tracks like Austria and Le Mans, with a lot of wheelie.

“But for sure at some other tracks we will not want to use because maybe in some part of the corner it's worst. But as I said, acceleration is also really important.

“I will try to use them all the time tomorrow, to try. I think there are some tracks where it will be really important but others maybe like Australia, with a lot of wind, maybe it would make a confusion like last year also.”