Vinales targets crucial fast start to mount victory challenge

Maverick Vinales says he is focused on getting a good start to give him a better chance of securing victory in the Spanish MotoGP in Jerez, an area that repeatedly let him down during the 2019 season

Though Vinales’ thunder in qualifying for the 2020 MotoGP opener was stolen by Yamaha counterpart and pole sitter Fabio Quartararo, it is the Spaniard that has shown the most consistently impressive race pace during testing even if Marc Marquez was himself very rapid today in FP4.

Critical to Vinales’ prospects on Sunday are likely to be whether he can get at the front early on to exploit the Yamaha M1’s strengths in clear air, especially since its top speed disadvantage puts it on the back foot when fighting in a group.

Indeed, Vinales showed on numerous occasions in 2019 that while quick in the closing stages of the race, he couldn’t mount a victory challenge because he’d leave himself with too much work to do early on. As such, he admits he is particularly focused on the first few seconds of the race.

“It will be very important to be first at the first corner and to try put our rhythm will be crucial. It is the way our bike works, we need the maximum from the first lap. The tyres are working really well on our bike in the last 10 laps so we need to take profit of that.

“With Honda and other Yamahas we can fight a little bit better, with Ducati it is always difficult because I cannot make the speed so we cannot be close to them. We make an improvement and the bike will be better especially on brakes and if it is the last lap I will try the overtake.”