UPDATE: Yamaha confirms🎐 one of Maverick Vinales' crew has tested pos🍒itive, five team members including Massimo Meregalli withdraw.

Like fellow Yamaha title contenders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli, Maverick Vinales seemed to have dodged a bullet when the FIM Stewards only docked constructors' and teams' points for 🏅the factory's breach of the engine homologation rules.

But Vinales' relief didn't last long.

The Spaniard, currently third in the standings and 19 points from Suzuki's Joan Mir, had signalled on Thursday at Valencia that he was now "running🔯 out of engines" with three rounds still to go.

On Friday afternoon Vinales officially opened a sixth engine for the season, meaning he will be penalised with a pit lane start (+5 sec💮on🔴ds) in Sunday's Valencia MotoGP.

"You can imagine the📖 feeling I have," Vinales said on Friday evening. "Every year we are throwing away the opportunity to win the title by mistakes.

"So for sure my feeling is very bad, but I have a perfect situation at home, I have a perfect life, I don’꧑t want to be angry anymore. I want to be happy.

"Even if I don’t have the chance this year, I will have the chance next one or the next one. Still I hav💎e ⛎two more years with Yamaha and we can do something great.

"About the race, I don’t know. I have a very open mind. I can do a very꧙ good result, maybe I have a special da🥀y, my feeling is amazing, I can ride faster than anyone. We will see. I don't put any limit on myself.

"We will see if we can take out something very positive, our contenders can make mistakes, it can rain and we can ꦇhave a red flag and then I can start on the grid in the position I finish. So I don’t want to lose the motivation.

"We are upset for sure, because we don’t ride with the same conditions as the others. But this i🍸s our problem, so we will try to face it good and finally as a team we will try to work in the best way.

"The only problem I see is that it's difficult to overtake𒀰 with our bike. This is the only point. Maybe I wಌill need to risk really much to overtake."

As if the pit lane ꦉstart wasn't bad news enough, one of his Monster Yamaha team members is also thought ♑to have tested positive for Covid on Friday, meaning an anxious wait for Vinales' own PCR result.

"I really don't know [the situation]💟. You can see my face, I don’t take off the mask!" Vinales said. "I don’t want to get positiv🧜e, first of all because I have important people at home.

"I d🔜on’t want to pass the Covid to my people, or the team or the other riders. So for sure I will try to take the maximum prevention for the Covid. I made a PCR this morning, after FP1, so we will see.

"What more can happen in one weekend? I don'🍎t know!"

Vinales' engine use prior to start of Valencia weekend.

Returning to the engine issue, Vinales said he was sunk when Yamaha only discovered how to control the valve problem after he had lost one e🐷ngine and opened two others at Jerez 1.

That meant he ha⭕s used engines 4 and 5 for every session since, with the exception of practice in Austria.

"The problem is that at Jerez they understand the problem after we closed the third engine," Vinales said. "Be🦋cause if not still I had four engines [after losing one].

"But from Aragon I'm running out of engines, s🦩o we were managing theꦗ best we can and in the second race I only had one engine with a lot of milage. So we just did little laps [in practice].

"Still yesterday 🀅we were discussing whether to risk continuing with the number 5 engine, doing just a few laps in practice an💛d taking a risk for the races and hoping that it won't stop the bike.

"But for me it's too risky, we are too far [behind]. If you were first with 20 points you can do, but we don’t have the 💜setting, the bike is not working and then we have to face it with old engines. So it was no meaning.

"We needed to put a new one. It's true that I will♏ start from pit lane and that's it.

"I mean the option of the title is for sure much more difficult, but everyth𒈔ing can still happen.

"Our problem is we are not on the level. I 𝔍do𒐪n’t know why, after Misano we lost everything. We don't find grip, it's very difficult to ride the bike."

The big question is now whether Quartararo (14 points from Mir) and/or Morbidelli (25-points behind) will also need an ext🎐ra engine in the remaining rounds.

Bo✱th Petronas riders said they have no knowledge of their engine situation, but Quartararo is best placed having not lost any powerplants so far this seaso🐽n.

Vinales was 10th in the wet opening practice aℱt Valencia, the❀n 11th on slicks in the damp FP2 session. Mir was 10th overall, with Quartararo 9th and Morbidelli 3rd.

The weather is expected to im🐽prove as t💦he weekend goes on.