Movistar Yamaha Seal Sixth and Seventh Place in Spielberg Race
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14/08/2017
Race
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Maverick Viñales had the throttle fully open at the NeroGiardini Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich, as he contended in a seven-rider fight at the front in the early stages of the race. Vinales lost some time, running wide in turn 1 in an incident but he put his head down to collect crucial championship points taking sixth place.
Viñales had a good start and held on to his fourth place going into the first corner. He briefly made a move on his teammate on lap 3, but couldn’t make it stick. He was eager to have another go in turn 1 on the next lap, but ran wide and fell back to seventh place.
The young Spaniard didn’t let the small error upset his rhythm and, with 15 laps to go, he was back behind his teammate, ready to join the seven-rider fight for the lead.
As Rossi went wide in turn one, Viñales moved up to sixth. On lap 17 the young gun was ready to take on Johann Zarco. He was looking threatening behind the satellite rider for the remainder of the race, but was not able to squeeze his number 25 bike past the Frenchman, and crossed the line in sixth place, 7.447s from the front.
Today's race results see Viñales move back to third in the championship standings, 24 points behind the leader and 9 points ahead of Rossi. The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team holds second place in the team rankings, with a 22-point margin to the front. In the Constructor championship, Yamaha holds the top spot. They are on equal points with Honda, each having earned 211 in total and both scored four GP wins, but Yamaha earned one more second place so far this season.
Maverick Viñales
Position: 6th - Championship: 3rd - Points: 150
"I suffered from a big drop in grip of the rear tyre for almost the entire race. When I went wide as I was fighting with Valentino, I just tried to calm down, make the tyre work until the end, but it was totally impossible. Not only with other manufacturers, but also with Zarco, it was really difficult to keep following them. We have to work really hard if we want to fight for this championship. I like Silverstone a lot, it is one of the best tracks on the calendar. I always like going there, I really like the lay-out. I will go for the best result possible, trying to be on top."
Massimo Meregalli
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director
"We had anticipated that this would be a challenging race, that would be hard on the tyres. We decided to go with the hard rear spec this morning, but in the end this didn’t pay off as we had hoped. The start of the race went well: with both riders being able to compete at the front of the field, but after 10 laps they started to suffer from a lack of grip from the rear tyre. It was unfortunate that this cost us some valuable points in the championship challenge, but the riders did well to hold on to sixth and seventh place and bring home the best results possible under these circumstances. The team will work hard to find a solution for the issue before the race at Silverstone, at the private test in Misano next weekend."
