Maverick Vinales admits that tyre choice will be a deciding factor as he looks to challenge for a second consecutive Silverstone victory tomorrow. The Spaniard qualified fourth on the grid but Movistar Yamaha have struggled to make their rear tyre last the distance in recent races, leaving Vinales without a win since Le Mans.
With the choice of rubber likely to make or break his race, Vinales admits he may even keep an eye on Yamaha’s satellite team Tech 3 given their recent habit of upsetting the factory squad in race trim.
“For sure, you always look for something more but I’m quite satisfied. We did a good improvement in FP4. I’m quite happy about the tyres, we ran with the hard and soft to try to understand the way to go tomorrow for the race because it seems very difficult to know which tyre will work. We’ll have to pay a lot of attention to what the others do, not only in our box but also Tech 3 because they often choose very good. We have to be ready for everything.”
Yamaha’s recent problems are still fresh in Vinales’ mind and he expects the second half of the race to be key tomorrow.
“I’m looking for the degradation to be not so big because in the last part of the race in Austria, the spinning was amazing, so we have to choose the tyre which won’t have more spinning at the end of the race. It will be difficult but we will try to make right choice and find the right tyre that will be consistent through the whole race.”
