Viñales: “I just pushed”

Fastest on Day 1 and over half a second clear

New Movistar Yamaha MotoGP recruit Maverick Viñales kept his incredible preseason form rolling on Day 1 of the #QatarGP, going fastest and 0.596 ahead of nearest rival Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) after fitting a new tyre. With weather for Day 2 uncertain, the Spaniard wanted assured entry to Q2.

MV25, P1: "I‘m feeling good. During the last part of the test I felt confident and today I felt the same. I went out on the same bike and the track was looking good, so I just pushed and tried to do my best. The bike is working great and the team is doing a good job all the time and we improved the electronics a bit, so that helped to set today‘s lap time. At the end, I put in a new tyre and set that 1‘54.316s. The important thing is that tomorrow we‘ll work really hard on the race pace. Today we were feeling good on the medium tyres and I was able to set nice lap times, but we decided to put in the new tyre anyway, so in case it rains tomorrow we‘ll be in Q2. The track was little bit dirty and windy on the first couple of laps, but then the wind calmed down so we had more power on the bike and that helped a lot. The first laps were quite difficult with the wind, the bike was wheelying and there wasn‘t a lot of grip on the circuit, but suddenly the track improved a lot and when I put in the new tyre I just had to push and go for it."