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MotoGP Austin: Vinales 'starting to understand' the 2018 Yamaha

Maverick Vinales believes he and his team are finally beginning to understand what it will take to make the 2018 Yamaha M1 into a race-winning bike after taking second in yesterday’s Austin MotoGP.

The Spaniard had no answer for winner Marc Marquez but showed the rest of the field - including team-mate Valentino Rossi on the same compound of Michelins - a clean pair of heels to bounce up the points table using less electronic assistance on the new M1.

“We start to understand how to go fast on this 2018 Yamaha bike. But I’m actually really happy. Today I think was the maximum we could do. I’m happy. I can’t wait to be in Jerez. I think it’s a track that fits quite well for our bike and we’re going to try the best. Now it’s time to improve, to fix some of the problems we have on the bike and try to make another step,” said Vinales, speaking at Austin.

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“As I said in Argentina, we needed much more power on the beginning. Try to ride a little bit more aggressive, close to what I ride like last year. More aggressive, pushing more the bike. It’s something I couldn’t do during all the pre-season, be a little bit more like my own style.

“But seems now to getting better and better, getting more my style. With this new bike seems to work. We have to keep it like that. We know as I said we can improve still quite a lot. It’s important to see in Europe how the bike works. I’m actually really happy. Especially the last laps of the race it’s been great. We need to keep focusing like that.”

In Argentina, Vinales began to wind down the amount of electronic assistance and continued in that direction over this weekend. It has made the bike more responsive on corner exit, which was the biggest problem for him.

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