Monster Energy Factory Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales said that he was happy with his third place finish at the British MotoGP at Silverstone, believing he took everything from his M1 in order to secure the podium finish.

The Spaniard started in sixth place and benefitted from the crash in the opening corner to end the opening lap in fourth place. Despite enjoying one of his best opening stints of 2019, Vinales didn’t have the early pace to go with Marc Marquez and Alex Rins out front.

Vinales did move past his Yamaha team-mate, Valentino Rossi, into third and slowly pulled the front two in over the second half of the lap. Unfortunately for the Spaniard, the race finished a lap or two too soon, as he just caught the front two as the chequered flag waved.

Despite this, Vinales was very happy with his podium finish, just 0.620 seconds off the race win.

“I make a race by my own, fighting with myself lap-by-lap, on this track when you get alone it’s very difficult to keep the rhythm, to keep focused and to be strong,” said the 24-year-old.

“But somehow, I take the maximum from the bike, and even a little bit more and that’s why I am happy. I’m confident that for the next race, we can be even better.”

Vinales ran very deep into Brooklands, losing a lot of time in the early stages of the race. When asked if he thinks this was one of the reasons he wasn’t able to pull the front two in, he said: “I think so, also starting on the second row is very difficult, but anyway as I said, we make the maximum from the bike, we cannot ask for more.

“This track is one of the worst for the engine, so we need to keep working as I said. We felt we had very positive points and weak points on our bike, so we have to work on the weak points.”

One  of the weak points that was highlighted over the weekend was the Yamaha’s speed deficiency down the straights. Through the speed-trap, Vinales was upwards of seven km/h behind the fastest speeds of the Ducati and Honda’s. Vinales believes that work done over the Misano test next week will help alleviate those concerns.

“On the straight we lose a lot, if we compare it’s 0.3/0.4 every lap, so I have to push the bike on the maximum,” said Vinales.

“We are creating a good way the chassis, we are improving in races, especially with our grip. So, we continue working, because I feel if we make another step with the chassis we will be able to fight for the races.

“This Misano test will be important, we will have new items and I think it will be good for my riding style.”