Maverick Vinales has described his Suzuki chassis as “perfect” after improving by a second on the final day of the Sepang pre-season test. The Spanish rookie was twelfth fastest at the end of the week and feels the team have a great base to build from and now need to work on the GSX-RR’s engine.
“I’m very happy as we worked so hard from the opening day of the test and we made some big steps forward. We improved more than two seconds from the first day, so we are very happy. We worked so much with the chassis all the time during the past three days and I believe that we can go two-to-three steps better now.”
“I would like to concentrate a little bit more on the engine-side for me at the next test, but the chassis is perfect; I can go 100% on the bike and I can push so much more with the front tyre, so that this is what I really like a lot with the bike. I can go so fast into the corners and this is the big advantage. If we are able to have slightly more engine power, and keep this advantage of the chassis, I believe that we can make even bigger improvements.”
Despite such an impressive start to his MotoGP preparation, finishing just half a second shy of his highly-rated teammate Aleix Espargaro, Vinales still sees a number of areas that he needs to improve on before Qatar.
“Although I’m struggling a little bit on how to manage the tyres – as it’s so very different to Moto2 – finding the best lines is a slightly difficult-point for me right now. My team helped me a lot finding the best lines and I managed this and improved a lot during the test. I’m so happy that all the crews and engineers worked so hard for me during these three days of testing and I’m really looking forward to our next test.”
