Maverick Viñales, backstory on Valentino Rossi: “I didn’t sleep.”

Maverick Viñales, backstory on Valentino Rossi: “I didn’t sleep.”

Maverick Viñales in an interview with Lluis Zuniga’s podcast returned to talk about his difficult experience at Yamaha: “2017 was a complicated year. I remember in Le Mans I beat Valentino Rossi and I didn’t sleep that day because he was my idol.”

Despite the promising start, everything sank soon: “It all started to go wrong from Barcelona. The team told me to evaluate five chassis and I didn’t understand anything. At the memory I still get angry, 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 to lose the World Championship with Yamaha.”

Viñales explained that the difficult years at Yamaha marked him: “They gave me a lot of mental damage. Signing for Aprilia was a radical change, it was a relief to know that the problem was not 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 tailor-made for Aleix, he’s been here for many years and has developed the bike according to his style. Now I want them to listen to me and bring new things to the team.”