Monster Energy Factory Yamaha MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales said that he was delighted with his race pace, as the Spaniard ended the opening day of free practice fifth fastest overall in Brno.

The Yamaha man is enjoying a good run of form, winning in Assen and backing that victory up with a second place at the Sachsenring in the two races proceeding the summer break.

Settling back into work after three weeks off, Vinales ended the day a quarter of a second behind Fabio Quartararo’s fastest time of the day.

“Honestly, I’m really happy about today, because we worked hard for the race,” said the 24-year-old.

“So, if it rains tomorrow we have the work done, and I think we did it in a good way. The race pace is really good and I felt quite good with the bike.

Vinales said that he did his fastest lap time and the time that eventually saw him inside the top ten earlier than usual, as he wanted to work on race pace in the latter part of the free practice session.

“I set my lap time a little earlier than the rest, which can be a little bit tricky, but I needed to do it so I could concentrate on working on the race,” he said.

“In the last part of the practice we worked on the race distance and it felt good, the bike was working well.

“The tyre degradation is difficult for everyone, the tyres drop so much, so we need to understand which spec drops the least over 20 laps. It’s difficult, but we will see what we can do.”