VINALES ABANDONED HIS PLAN TO STOP IN SEPANG SPRINT AFTER SPOTTING WET-WEATHER BIKE

Maverick Viñales entered the Sepang MotoGP Sprint intending to stop early, but a last-minute change of mind sent him back onto the track as rain threatened.

The Red Bull KTM Tech3 rider had shown good speed in Malaysia and made the top 10 in Friday practice. Even so, he had said he might conserve energy during Saturday’s Sprint to prepare for Sunday’s grand prix. His aim was to use the short race to assess the bike before calling it a day.

“To be honest, in the Sprint, I tried to get the rhythm and see how the bike was working for tomorrow, and then I went in and the plan was to stop,” Viñales said. But when he saw his spare machine set up for wet conditions in pit lane, he reconsidered as rain began to fall. “I said, ‘Okay, I go out,’ because it was starting to rain.”

The gamble did not pay off: the rain arrived too late to benefit Viñales or the other riders who changed bikes. “I think after the chequered flag it started to rain like crazy,” he said.

His focus has since shifted to recovering ahead of the next race. Viñales said his arm was feeling better than it had on Friday, reporting “much less power on the arm” on Saturday. However, he stressed that back-to-back race weekends would be demanding and that he needed time to rebuild his strength.

“I know now I need to recover a lot because two weekends in a row is very tough for me,” he said. “So, I need to recover to make the muscles grow.” He also acknowledged the physical demands of his KTM: “I understand that the bike, you need a lot of strength to ride it, especially the bike I rode.”