MotoGP, Vinales-Yamaha case: the ‘faulty’ clutch that infuriated the rider

Valentino Rossi also has his say on the Yamaha-Viñales dispute that exploded on the eve of the GP of Styria 2 and as a good Samaritan he hopes for clarification between the parties: “I hope they make peace”. As is well known, Viñales was suspended with a sharp statement from the Yamaha MotoGP team for “disciplinary issues”. For now, the rider has not made any statements even if by now, given the turn of the dispute, only a miracle would allow that after being on foot, Yamaha can entrust him with his M1 again. It is not the best business card for the 2022 transition in Aprilia. The Noale manufacturer needs less of everything than an emotionally “unstable” driver who brings with him such a quarrel.

the signal from japan

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Compared to the Yamaha-Viñales quarrel, here is the okay of those in Japan who count and decide in the house of the three tuning forks and who thus wanted to make public a behavior that sometimes is resolved in great secrecy because it is not good for anyone. Maverick, as known, is a great handle but he is also a “humoral” rider who suffers the changing wind of the results and even less likes the coexistence with uncomfortable teammates such as Valentino Rossi, before, and now Fabio Quartararo.

the developments

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In any case, now Maverick Viñales is at great risk because what is written in the official note of the MotoGP team of the Iwata company is an accusation that amounts to a “sentence” for the rider because it is based on technical data deriving from the analysis of the telemetry, where nothing escapes. Why, for example, did Maverick not want to cross the finish line by finishing the race and why did he increase his times by five seconds or more each time in his last three laps? 1’25.974 (23rd lap), 1’30.320 (24th lap), 1’31’.830 (25th lap), 1’30.654 (26th lap)? It seems that Viñales did not answer these questions asked by his team in a post-race meeting but that the answer would lie in the start of race 2 last Sunday with the clutch knocked out, understood by the driver as a “carelessness” of the team, if not a real … sabotage. There began the long battle of nerves that ended with the now infamous communiqué.