Maverick Vinales claims he has had the same rear grip problem for more than two years and so far, nothing has been done to permanently fix it.

The Spaniard reckons he has only had grip for a whole race when he won in Australia last year, and apart from that, has been slip-sliding his way around. Vinales lost 1.3s on his best laptime from warm-up in Argentina whereas Marc Marquez lost three-tenths.

“It’s something incredible. It’s very, very strange,” Vinales said. “We are the only Yamaha who suffers so much. It never happened to me even when I was in Suzuki and not in the first part of 2017.

“Honestly, it’s been two and a half years up that I have had this problem. Australia is the only time that I had grip.”

Team-mate Valentino Rossi, meanwhile, went with a different compound selection and came second but it annoyed with the gap to Marquez. “Ee must try to work to be competitive and fight. And maybe stay closer to Marquez, because to finish 10 seconds down is huge. I would have preferred to be only three seconds behind and see him sometimes.”

Andrea Dovizioso, whom Rossi mugged for second on the last lap, didn’t want to fight with his countryman as there was ‘zero’ grip on that part of the track, and he was afraid he would crash and lose 16 points.

Alex Rins put in an heroic charge from 16th on the grid to fifth but said he has to get his shit together in qualifying. “I need to put myself more on the limit, the bike more on the limit,” he squeaked.

Herve Poncharal is a bit miffed with rider Hafizh Syahrin who is claiming he doesn’t have the confidence to push with the new KTM. “After three laps in FP2, he improved by a full two seconds, which is a lot. Changed nothing on the bike, but clearly there is something in his head,” said the Frenchman, before sneaking off for a cheeky riot.

Johann Zarco lost all momentum when he had to brake hard to avoid hitting the pit-lane limited Jorge Lorenzo. The Frenchman managed to collect a championship point but said he was struggling to pass people and was, at the end, exhausticated.

Lorenzo threw the whole book of excuses at his performance. He switched on the pitlane limiter at the start, had some contact with Abraham, his left grip came loose and then the track temperature went up, which he also didn’t like. Diddums.

Rookie Miguel Oliviera has targeted the top KTM spot after finishing one-tenth behind Pol Espargaro in Argentina. Not a bad shout.

You may have noticed the Alma logos have vanished from Jack Miller and Pecco Bagnaia’s Paramac bikes. This is because Alma boss Luigi Scavone has been arrested on suspicion of tax evasion. Apparently officials found a plane ticket and a bag with €200,000 in cash at his house.

Crutchlow, blah, moved, blah, rules, blah…