Maverick Viñales takes third place in the German GP

Maverick Viñales got off to a good start at the Sachsenring circuit in today’s German GP, but his teammate had a better one and pushed him back to fifth place. It took the youngster a while to get into the groove and he had to let Cal Crutchlow and Dovizioso pass him in the opening five laps. He lost another place to Álvaro Bautista, but soon moved back up to seventh as Crutchlow crashed out of the race with 20 laps to go.

Three laps later the Spaniard started dropping into the 1‘21s and it took him little time to latch onto the back of the three riders fighting for fourth place. He was looking for a way through on Dovizioso and with eight laps to go he made his move. Shortly after, also Bautista had to relinquish his position, followed by Lorenzo.

Viñales was now in fourth and setting personal best sectors as he chased Petrucci and a place on the podium. He was on a charge and made the overtake for third place look effortless, two laps before the end. He kept pushing and took the chequered flag 2.776s behind the leader.

MotoGP will be taking a short summer break after this weekend. The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team will be back in action in three weeks’ time at the Monster Energy Grand Prix České republiky, held at the Automotodrom Brno from August 3rd – 5th.

MAVERICK VIÑALES
“It was a tough race, honestly, but I feel happy because I think we worked well throughout the whole weekend and I think we did a good job. With the team we worked hard on the last ten laps of the race, which were the most important. I think we were one of the strongest at the end of the race, but there are still things for us to improve, also on myself. It’s good to have a break right now, to give us some time to work hard and try to improve the bike. It was almost impossible to overtake today. I tried, but I was going wide everywhere. Outside, inside, I tried everything! When the tyres started to drop I was overtaking everyone in corner 8, closing my eyes, going downhill, full gas. I gave everything, and the bike was working well. I was doing some 1’21.8s or 1’21.9s and this was the race pace that I was expecting. Honestly, congratulations to the team. We’re making the steps little by little and we just have to keep working.”