Monster Energy Yamaha Factory Racing Statement
Yamaha regrets to announce that Maverick Viñales‘ entry to this weekend‘s Austrian MotoGP event has been withdrawn by the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team.
The absence follows the suspension of the rider by Yamaha due to the unexplained irregular operation of the motorcycle by the rider during last weekend‘s Styria MotoGP race.
Yamaha‘s decision follows an in-depth analysis of telemetry and data over the last days.
Yamaha‘s conclusion is that the rider‘s actions could have potentially caused significant damage to the engine of his YZR-M1 bike which could have caused serious risks to the rider himself and possibly posed a danger to all other riders in the MotoGP race.
The rider will not be replaced at the Austrian GP.
Decisions regarding the future races will be taken after a more detailed analysis of the situation and further discussions between Yamaha and the rider.
— Statement Ends —
Trev’s take on it
Maverick Vinales is currently sixth in the MotoGP World Championship with 95-points.
Last week at Red Bull Ring I Vinales had seemingly stalled his bike just prior to the re-start of the race. He then pushed his bike into pit-lane and started the race from there. He eventually finished last, but after the race results sheet listed him as ‘Finished through pits’.
Vinales had been on a charge from that pit-lane start and on the second lap was one of the fastest riders in the field and continued at a good pace over the opening ten laps before then losing pace in the second half of the race after being handed a long-lap penalty. That said, even some of those laps in the second half of the race were still competitive, including a 1m24.9 on lap 15 and the majority in the 1m25s, still a good enough pace to have challenged for a top ten if he had not started from pit-lane.
Presumably the data from the machine of Vinales must indicate to Yamaha that the rider rode the machine in a fashion that would suggest he was trying to blow the engine so he could retire from the race. This is backed up by onboard race footage where Vinales repeatedly puts the bike on the limiter over the course of the final laps before he entered pit-lane. The on track occurrences are not crazy obvious clutch-in and hold the bike on the limiter instances, just repeatedly not changing up where he should of which allowed the bike to hit the limiter at various points. It was not until a frustrated couple of seconds on the limiter as he entered the actual pit-lane that it really looked bad, and of course this was heard by officials and anyone else near the pit entrance. Of course there could also be a lot more on the data that we couldn’t see on the cameras.
Maverick’s official quote after the race was the following – “We changed the clutch. I made a normal start on the grid for the warm-up lap, but the bike stopped. I’m happy that in the first race I was able to start well. I was fighting at the front, but in the second race (re-start) the feeling was not the same. We changed the tyres, and I don’t know why but the bike was spinning so much, even on the main straight. I tried to go up the order, but then I had problems with the bike, and I stopped.”
Back at the end of June, Vinales and Yamaha announced that they would part at the end of season 2021, after five seasons of racing together. One might expect that the 26-year-old Spaniard could now have already ran his last race with Yamaha…
When the news came out he made this post on Instagram. Loosely translated to English this says “Thank you for being the motivation and the light of my days, I love you ❤️ @raquel_subira”
View this post on Instagram
Vinales was rumoured to have married Raquel earlier this year, seemingly in virtual secrecy. Raquel gave birth to their daughter three months ago and his family has featured heavily in his social media posts this year.
Maverick Vinales was attacked by some on Twitter back in April after some fans had, reportedly falsely, got up him for supposedly attacking officials over a cancelled lap in qualifying, where he first sought to defend himself before ultimately then deleting his Twitter account.
It is hard to see him riding for Yamaha again after this unless he publicly acknowledges his error and begs forgiveness. He had been linked to an Aprilia ride in 2022 but it seems as though he has nothing signed for next year, as yet.
