After winning the Sprint race, Maverick Viñales was Jorge Martín’s (Prima Pramac/Ducati) main pursuer for almost the entire main race of the Portuguese MotoGP GP. Despite dealing with gearbox issues early on, the Aprilia rider never stopped believing in the possibility of winning.
The Spanish rider spoke to the press about how he dealt with the breakdown: ‘I was just praying for it to engage, because I was loading it about five times and then it would engage. That’s how it is, sometimes it can happen and it happened here. I prefer it to happen when you’re in the lead. Imagine if I was tenth and it happened, I would be very disappointed. But now I just say that I am really motivated and I could see myself winning another race. Despite the problem, I think maybe I could have a chance to fight for it. It’s good. I end this weekend with a win, so I’m happy‘.
Viñales highlighted that he always believed in the triumph, despite the losses imposed by the gearbox: ‘Throughout the race I thought I could fight for the victory. The problem is that the gearbox was always getting worse, so I was always losing more on the main straight. I think I was losing 0.2s on the main straight and then I would recover the distance again. Honestly, with all this problem I was doing 1m38.8s and it was unbelievable, because it could have been 1m38.6s. I am really happy‘.
