5th for Rossi as Viñales collects crucial championship points in Czech GP

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi started from mid-pack in today‘s Monster Energy Grand Prix České republiky and put his head down to ultimately take 5th position. Maverick Viñales had difficulties finding form on the Automotodrom Brno track this afternoon and took 14th place.

Rossi had a decent start from P10 on the grid and managed to complete the opening lap in ninth place, right behind his team-mate. On lap 4, The Doctor moved up to eighth and started his charge to the front.

With 12 laps to go, the number-46 rider passed Aleix Espargaró, and when Pol Espargaró crashed out in front of him, the Italian was in sixth place. He had to make up a 1.2s gap to enter the top 5. The 41-year-old steadily chipped away at it, and with five laps to go he was ready to join Alex Rins and Fabio Quartararo for the fight for P4. He smoothly overtook the fellow Yamaha rider and skillfully withstood the pressure from behind applied by Miguel Oliveira, to take 5th place, 7.517s from first.

Viñales started from P5 but lost a few positions on the opening lap. He crossed the line for the first time in eighth. Riding defensively, he hoped the bike would come to him in the later stages, but he had to let his team-mate past in the meantime.

As the number of laps went up it became clear he wasn‘t able to fully push due to a lack of feeling and would have to focus on salvaging as many championship points as possible to defend his runner-up status in the championship standings. He lost various positions and ended the race in 14th place, 19.720s from the front, with a hunger to set things right next week at the Red Bull Ring – Spielberg.

Today’s results mean that Viñales holds on to second in the championship rankings, 17 points from the top. Rossi is now in seventh place, with a 32-point gap to first. Yamaha remains first in the constructor standings, and Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP also stays in second place in the team classification.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team will be back in action next week for the Grand Prix von Österreich, where the MotoGP classes will be racing two weeks in a row.

Valentino Rossi:

It was a good race today. The second race in Jerez was better because we got a podium, but in general my performance here was better, because I had to start from the fourth row. The races have become very complicated now in MotoGP, but I felt good on the bike, and I had a good performance at this race track. I was able to be strong from the beginning to the end and also in the last part of the race I was good. It‘s a shame that yesterday we made some mistakes in qualifying because if I could have started one row to the front maybe I could have fought for the podium. But anyway, this remains a good performance and I enjoyed the race.

 

Maverick Viñales:

I think this is my worst result with Yamaha. I don‘t know what happened, honestly. This morning I felt great and I was hitting good lap times, also on used tires. But in the race I couldn‘t keep the pace, not even for one lap. I just lost a lot of grip since the beginning, and little by little it got worse and worse. It was very difficult to ride the bike. The only thing that I could do was try to finish and try to take some points. If I had risked more I might have scored zero, and that would have been a mistake. So we took two very valuable points today and, on the bright side, the leader of the championship also didn‘t do great today, so this lessens the damage. We have to check the data and try to be fast again in Austria.