Over the past few MotoGP off-seasons, we’ve heard a familiar rhetoric from Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales.
Ultra-fast on his day and one of the most consistently-rapid qualifiers on the MotoGP grid, he lacks Sunday consistency.
But he normally comes into a season with a plan that promises to fix the issue then repeatedly fails to deliver.
This year started in the same way. Vinales pledged at the team’s launch last month that he was once again preparing to tackle his issues – many of which seem to exist not with the admittedly-underperforming Yamaha M1 but rather with his own approach to races, particularly tough ones.
“What I try to do is to stay calm,” Vinales told journalists. “That’s the most important thing for me.
“I need to find people around me who help me find stability. I’ve talked a lot with Maio [Meregalli] and Lin [Jarvis], and they understand that sometimes it’s difficult but they also understand what I need to do to be fast.
“Every year we understand and learn a little bit more. Every year I give my maximum to be as fast as possible and to be at the top.”
That’s never worked for him since he joined the team four years ago, despite numerous strong starts to the seasons. Vinales’ campaigns have always quickly faded into mediocre results once the series gets down to the serious business of racing in Europe after the flyaways that kick off the year.
And while it’s still quite hard to judge after only a single race at Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix whether this year will be any different, the nature of Vinales’ win suggests that maybe there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel for the soon-to-be new father.
It’s not often that we see an aggressive, attacking Vinales, but that’s exactly what he brought to the game as he picked his way through the field and into the lead.
And according to Sunday’s race winner, that’s almost entirely down to an improved mindset that he believes he’s brought to the season.
“We’ve changed our mentality,” Vinales said when asked by The Race what had changed. “We needed to be stronger on overtakes, and it’s something we were missing last year.
“I felt like I had great potential and great rhythm but I got stuck a lot. But in Qatar, I felt like I had many points to overtake where we are fast.
“I was much more aggressive than in the previous races, and we need to keep working like that. We need to push and push. This is the only way.”
However, the charge through the field wasn’t entirely due simply to the riding being more aggressive.
Yamaha has targeted its bike’s inability to overtake as one of the key areas needing work through the winter, and Vinales says he’s noticing improvements there too.
Among the slowest bikes on the straights but one of the quickest mid-corner thanks to the responsive chassis, the M1 has traditionally needed clear track to be able to run the sort of fast and flowing lines that allow it to be devastatingly fast in time attack mode.
But, concentrating on corner entry with the modified 2021 chassis that he and Fabio Quartararo are racing (based in large part on the 2019 bike satellite rider Franco Morbidelli used to win three races last year), Vinales says he’s seeing some tentative steps forward there too.
“For sure we still need to see how it works at other circuits,” he added as a caveat, “but we’ve prepared the bike well this winter and at least we’re faster on the change of direction to enter the corner.
“I can always turn with a lot of speed, but now this gives us the opportunity to use it.”
There is one thing of which Vinales is certain when it comes to his mental approach for the coming year.
Questioned about whether he believes that the arrival of his imminent first child will slow him down, Vinales was quick to laugh it off by insisting that he’s never started a season feeling as strong as he does in 2021.
“I have a unique family and they support me a lot,” he enthused after the race.
“I feel crazy this year, like I never want to close the gas! I’m riding faster than ever on my motocross bike, and when I get on the M1 it’s been the year I feel like I have the best potential ever.
“Overall, what it feels like is that one of my dreams is coming true: I have a perfect wife and soon I’ll have a perfect baby.
“I cannot ask for more, and the victory just makes me feel blessed. Everything is good and I feel very thankful for all of it.”
