22 Maggio 2023
Maverick Viñales, background on Valentino Rossi: “I haven’t slept”
In an interview with Lluis Zuniga’s podcast, Maverick Viñales once again spoke about his difficult experience at Yamaha: “2017 was a complicated year. I remember that I beat Valentino Rossi at Le Mans and I didn’t sleep that day because it was my idol”.
Despite the promising start, everything quickly fell apart: “Everything started to go wrong from Barcelona. The team told me to evaluate five chassis and I didn’t understand anything. I still get angry when I remember, we had the best bike at that time. But they decided to change some things and it didn’t go well. In Barcelona in 2017 I started losing the World Championship with Yamaha”.
Viñales explained that the difficult years in Yamaha marked him: “They did me a lot of mental damage. Signing for Aprilia was a radical change, it was a relief to know that the problem wasn’t me.”
On his goals with Aprilia: “This year I’m here to lead the team. Last year it was Aleix, but now I want to be myself and be heard. Now it’s a bike made to measure for Aleix, it’s been here since many years and has developed the bike in his own style. Now I want them to listen to me and bring new things to the team.”
©
