Vinales wants small lead group to avoid Ducati riders

Maverick Vinales is aiming to avoid a repeat of the Aragon MotoGP when he lost out on the podium to Ducati duo Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller by stretching the leading group at the Thailand MotoGP.

The Monster Yamaha rider narrowly missed out on a first pole position since the Misano round, losing out to Fabio Quartararo by 0.106s, but overall has been buoyed by his pace at the Chang International Circuit so far this weekend.

Last time out Vinales looked well set for a third consecutive podium before suffering badly with tyre degradation over the closing laps of the Aragon race to drop from second to fourth place behind Dovizioso and Miller.

With the race pace providing a similar forecast in Thailand this weekend, Vinales has made his plan of attack clear and wants to keep the leaders “a small group” to stay clear of the “very difficult” Ducati riders.

“We lose a little bit [in top speed] but not like in Aragon, still we lose a little bit for sure but we know that we have another strong point and we will take profit there,” Vinales said, having seen Yamaha riders dominant the twisty and technical track sectors.

“It is very important from the beginning to push and try to make a small group because if not it will be very difficult with the Ducati guys. We will try to push from the beginning.

“In FP4 we made a jump from yesterday, we improved quite a lot, especially on the rhythm which we will looking to try to improve on and be closer to Marc [Marquez].

“Tomorrow we have a good chance, we will push from the first corner and we will see, anyway it will be very important to manage the tyres because normally here the tyres drops quite a lot so we will see.”

With Vinales starting from the front row in between Quartararo and Marquez, a trio of Ducati riders line up between fifth and seventh on the grid with Danilo Petrucci in front of Miller and Dovizioso.

Since the Austrian round Vinales has enjoyed an solid run of results thanks to four consecutive top five finishes highlighted by consecutive podiums at Silverstone and Misano.