Comments from Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP riders after FP3 at the Portuguese GP

2020-11-24 10:48
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi went straight back to work in this morning‘s FP3 at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. Viñales will be taking part in the Q2 session later this afternoon. Rossi will be fighting for a top-2 spot in Q1.



Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi had a busy outing at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve this morning. The team-mates were searching for grip and set the 10th and 20th time respectively of the FP3 session. Thanks to his faster FP2 time, Viñales automatically promoted to this afternoon‘s Q2 shoot-out. Rossi will be negotiating Q1.

With the sessions back to the ’normal‘ length, Viñales didn‘t want to waste a second of the 45-minute FP3. He got straight to work but struggled to find the same feeling out on track that he had yesterday. The Spaniard‘s 1‘39.693s best time from this morning earned him 10th in the FP3 results, 0.488s from the top. His best Friday time held him in ninth place in the combined Free Practice timesheets, 0.331s from first.

Rossi worked on race set-up for most of the FP3 session before putting his head down. The Italian noticed an improvement when his opening bid of a 1‘41.001s, set on lap 18/21, almost dropped under the 1‘41-mark and moved him up to 20th place in the combined rankings. The Doctor had time for one more run as the FP3 session came to a close. He bettered his time to a 1‘40.722s on his last lap, with a 1.517s-margin to first. Although it was an improvement on his Friday result by more than 0.5s, it kept him in 20th place in both the FP3 and the combined timesheets.

Viñales and Rossi will be back on track from 13:30 – 14:00 local track time (GMT+0) for FP4. Rossi will then take part in Q1 from 14:10 – 14:25, hoping to join Viñales in the Q2 session from 14:35 – 14:50.



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MAVERICK VIÑALES
MAVERICK VIÑALES


Position: 10th | Best lap time: 1'39.693s (+0.488s) | Laps: 18

This FP3 has been a pretty bad practice because we lost grip. I don‘t understand why I couldn‘t be faster this morning than I was yesterday. We need to work, because these inconsistencies bring us a bit of trouble. We need to see if we can solve it.

Source: Yamaha Motor Racing

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