Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales says he “may as well not have done” the German Grand Prix after being the last man to cross the line down in 19th after struggling throughout.
Vinales started a lowly 21st at the Sachsenring after failing to post an improved time in the closing seconds of Q1 due to hitting yellow flags on his final effort, his situation failing to improve after finding himself unable to make any progress at the start of the 30-lap contest.
He briefly managed to pass the similarly-struggling Petronas SRT Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli before eventually slipping back behind again en-route to 19th while team-mate and series leader Fabio Quartararo finished third, the Spaniard now 56 points adrift of Quartararo in the points standings having not stood on the rostrum since his victory in the season-opening Qatar GP.
Vinales rued that he “may as well not have done the race”, explaining that he found it “impossible” to attack the customer Avintia Ducati machines ahead of him, conceding that he “just doesn’t know why the bike is not working.”
“Honestly it was like we may as well have not done the race, I had good grip overall but at the start I nearly high-sided and I was trying to see if the tyre was flat because I didn’t understand why it happened,” said Vinales.
“Then I did three good laps in the low 1:22s, a high 1:21 but then when I caught the Ducati’s it was impossible.
“I just got frustrated and I didn’t know what else to do, and that was my race as I had a good rhythm until I got to them but I could do no more.
“The tyre was good, I just don’t know why the bike is not working.
“Qatar was fantastic but here is a complete disaster, I don’t know what to say I just want to go home and think about everything.”
Morbidelli shared Vinales’ frustrations about being unable to make further progress after qualifying just ahead in 18th as he could only end the race in the same position as the second-to-last classified finisher after finding it tough to challenge the riders ahead.
The Italian says he “knew” that making ground during the contest would be tricky, pointing at his Yamaha’s lack of top speed as the main reason for being unable to make moves due to always reaching “corners too far from the rider in front.”
“We already knew that starting from so far behind on such a narrow track where we didn’t have speed, that it was it was going to be a difficult race,” explained Morbidelli.
“We tried something for the race to make the bike more stable under braking to try to outbrake somebody or fight with someone but we always reached the corners too far from the rider in front and I couldn’t anyone.
“I also had worse turning so the speed wasn’t as good as FP4, but starting from so far behind there is really only one direction the race was going to go and it was this one.”
Morbidelli’s Petronas SRT team-mate Valentino Rossi also found himself stuck towards the foot of the leaderboard throughout the encounter, the seven-time premier class champion sharing his fellow M1 racer’s observations about being unable to get sufficiently close to his rivals ahead to make an attack.
He at least managed to salvage points in 14th, though still crossed the line over 16 seconds behind Quartararo on the same specification machine.
“Today I had a good feeling from this morning from warm-up because the bike was good, I was riding quite well and I enjoyed it and could do good lap-times until the end, but the problem is that in the race everything is more difficult,” said Rossi.
“I needed a good start but got a bad one, so I was stuck in the traffic which was not easy but when I had clean track ahead I was able to do good lap-times and my best time was not too bad, but it was not enough.
“Also in the last five or six laps I had to slow down a bit because I started to suffer with rear grip, we took some point but we expected to be better and further in front.”
