Valentino Rossi comments on ex-teammate Maverick Vinales’ struggles
Vinales has been unable to replicate his best MotoGP finishes (twice he finished thi🌳rd in the standings, once fourth) since leaving Yamaha for Aprilia.
The now-retired Rossi was in attendance at last wee𝕴kend’s Austrian MotoGP to see his ex-teammate endure twoꦺ awful starts which cost him possible podiums.
“In my opinion, starts have an𒁃 important technical part, but we mustn't forget th⭕e psychological part,” Rossi was quoted by .
“That is how the rider feels in his head when he is there alone when the ra🎶ce starts, which is always a criticᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚal moment.
“It's not necessarily a question of reaction, because there is the rider who is calm at the start, the one who is excited, concentrated, and there is instead the one who would like to get the result but it hasn't𒉰 come for a while, or knows that he can do it but is te𝕴nse.
“In the end it's a fraction of a second.
“Vinales seems re🔴alไly strong to me, [Saturday] he impressed me on the track, he was the one who went faster, the one who rode better, but in the end he takes home little.
“Maybe he suffers a li🐈ttle from this ✱thing. Because it remains a bit unfinished; he's always the one who goes fastest in practice but then in the end something is always missing on Sunday.
“Either he starts badly, or he touches someone.
“Vinales didn't get off to a bad start [on Sunday]. He didn't really start, hꦜe got off the [start] a hair later.”
Vinales fell from second to seventh in the sprint race in Austr🔜ia before Tur✃n 1.
In the gr🔯and prix he dropped very quickly to eighth.
His reaction was: “It's mandatory to improve it, there is no🌌 other way.
"But as a rider, I ♔cannot do anything else, I am doing all that I can, all that they ask me to do, and it's something the technicians have 𒉰to improve."
Jameꦉs was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
