Well deserved sixth place for Maverick Viñales after great comeback in Brno GP

The rookies of the Páginas Amarillas HP 40 team, Maverick Viñales and Luis Salom, had a difficult weekend at the circuit of Brno.

Viñales, who arrived in the Czech Republic having bagged a second place in Indianapolis last week, had not been able to find a good setup of his Kalex during the first two days of practice sessions and had to settle for position 17 on the starting grid.

His team companion Luis Salom also struggled to find the right setup and was only minimally faster than Maverick in qualifying which saw him starting from 14th place. Both riders made changes to their bikes for today’s warm-up session, which brought great results for both riders and both were able to improve their fastest times.

With the heavens threatening rain at any moment, the 11th race of the season went underway. Viñales was able to claw back a lot of positions in what maybe was his best performance of the season, and at the end of lap one he was in 10th place.

He continued to gain positions and was chasing Luthi and Aegerter with five laps to go. In the same lap, Luis Salom lost the front wheel and crashed out of 11th place.

With 2 laps to go, Maverick tried once more to attack Aegerter, but he had to go wide in one corner and was close to crashing, which made him lose touch with both Swiss riders.

Viñales crossed the finish line in a hard-earned and well-deserved 6th place and added 10 points to his championship tally.

Maverick Viñales – 6th place
“During warm-up I felt good on the bike and posted my fastest time of the weekend. We had to take some risks for the race and make further changes, some of which didn’t work out. I fought hard to try and get to fourth place, and I’m sure if we hadn’t started from that far back, I would have been fighting for the podium today.”

Luis Salom – DNF
“The work we did throughout the weekend has been rather positive. I made the mistake of starting the race with too soft springs. I was able to have a good pace and could close up to the group in front, but when I braked hard, the front locked up on me and I crashed. I wanted to try and re-catch the group but I couldn’t continue the race. In Silverstone I need to start working harder to try and achieve a better result.”

Source: Pons Racing