Maverick Vinales declared that he started the Portuguese Grand Prix “with the elbows out”, something he reckons was a crucial ingredient towards his runner-up finish in the contest.
Having started the Portuguese encounter from seventh on the grid, Vinales made an unusually strong start to move up to fifth by the end of the opening tour, before this was then upgraded to second after a crash involving Marc Marquez, Miguel Oliveira and Jorge Martin played out directly ahead of him.
The Aprilia pilot then displayed scorching pace across the 24-lap race as he piled the pressure on leader Francesco Bagnaia throughout, Vinales unable to force a mistake out of the reigning world champion though and forced to settle for the runners-up result instead.
Vinales admitted post race that he doesn’t feel he could have done much more at the Algarve International Circuit to get the better of Bagnaia for a first career win for Aprilia, adding that a rough sprint race where he was relegated backwards by several riders left him determined to start with his “elbows out” in order to ensure he remained firmly at the front.
“I worked hard for that one, and I’m really proud of all of my crew at Aprilia,” began Vinales.
“The sprint race was a shame because I think we had the pace to win it, but the real race was today and I’m happy I could put Pecco (Bagnaia) under pressure.
“I tried a few laps to really push for a mistake but there wasn’t one and he was really good, so I just said congratulations to them.
“Today I started with the elbows out and was determined to pass everyone and not let anybody pass because yesterday some riders pushed me out at Turn 5 and I lost the opportunity to win the race there.
“Our objective is to fight in the front and take the maximum from the weekend, if I win or not I’ll be happy with this and I know at some point the victory will come.”
Vinales felt he was lucky to escape being involved in the Turn 3 pile-up having entered the bend directly behind the incident, saying that the aggressive nature of MotoGP races as of late is “what you have to do to do well.”
“Turn 3 was pretty tight as I was pretty close to Marc (Marquez), and after that I tried to concentrate and go for Pecco, but everybody is being aggressive right now so that is what you have to do to do well,” continued Vinales.
“I braked very well (into Turn 3) and I knew they wouldn’t make the corner behind if they braked later, so I saw Marc go to the inside and then Jorge (Martin) close the door so they touched and he went into Miguel (Oliveira.)
“When I saw the hit I was like ‘oof Miguel, he’s going to have big pain’.”
