Viñales Ever Riding Again For Yamaha "Hard To Imagine" - [ Rumour Round-Up ]

Yamaha’s decision to suspend Maverick Vinales from this weeks Austrian GP has been the subject of a lot of speculation and many have been questioning Vinales’ motives behind such an action that Yamaha have labelled “dangerous”. The latest rumors have shed some light on this matter.

Link to poll: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgxVA57xmXnriXrHnIF4AaABCQ
0:00 - Yamaha Already Done With Maverick Vinales?
1:56 - Rapid Rumors

I'm your host Dillon Shelley and first up on Moto World:

Yamaha Already Done With Maverick Vinales?

MotoGP has since released onboard footage of the last few laps and Maverick Vinales was clearly seen riding slowly and blipping the throttle on multiple occasions

Motorsport reports that Vinales was between five seconds and twelve seconds slower on every single lap from lap 24 to lap 27 as compared to his average laptime

MotoGP engines while being incredibly powerful are built to very tight tolerances and they generally can’t handle such erratic riding lap after lap

The big question is what motivated Vinales into taking such drastic actions?

According to the inside sources of Motorsport, Vinales had felt that his current engine was low on power and it needed replacing

However, the Yamaha engineers on his side of the garage decided that the engine was fine and that it didn’t need replacing.

Apparently, Vinales wanted to force Yamaha into changing the engine by riding in the manner he did during the aforementioned laps

This source who is allegedly from inside Yamaha itself has been quoted as saying

“After this, it’s hard to imagine that Maverick will ever get back on a Yamaha. It’s a pity because he’s a good guy, but he hasn’t surrounded himself with the right people”

This is not the first time Vinales has done something like this as in 2012, during his Moto3 days, he left the paddock in the middle of a race weekend just to get himself out of a contract while still being a contender for that year’s title.

The source summed up his words by looking back at this incident

“I don't understand how he could do it again”


Rapid Rumors

Monster Yamaha were supposedly already working on a deal for Franko Morbidelli for next year [Moto Matters]

Apparently, all that remains is for the paperwork to be finalized

Yamaha’s test rider Cal Crutchlow has refuted rumors that he will be replacing Maverick Vinales by stating that “no, it’s not true” [Autosport]

“The situation is I haven’t discussed it with Lin [Jarvis] or Maio [Meregalli] at all. So, yeah, that’s your answer and that’s the truthful answer”, Cal clarified

“But yes, of course, I’m a contracted Yamaha rider, I’m sure I’ll discuss some things with Lin and Maio in due course”, he surmised

Yamaha’s satellite team SRT Yamaha is allegedly at risk of pulling out of MotoGP [GP One]

This follows confirmation from Petronas that they will no longer be sponsoring the Sepang outfit after the end of this season

SRT have already decided to pull out of Moto3 and Moto2 next year and supposedly, they maybe forced to do the same with their MotoGP team as well

Seemingly, Petronas did not like the lack of direction and autonomy for the team as they have been forced to play by Yamaha’s rules

This supposedly includes making way for Valentino Rossi and getting only a spec-B motorcycle for last year’s title runner-up Franko Morbidelli

SRT have seemingly already renegotiated there deal with Yamaha and will now field two B-Spec bikes next year to try and save their MotoGP project

Tech3 boss Herve Ponchoral feels “that the [Raul Fernandez moving to MotoGP] announcement was strange at this moment, as soon as [they] got back from summer vacation” [Motorcycle Sports]

He added that “everyone seems to get a little nervous, with some places that still don’t have a name… [His] plan was to spend a little more time with [their] current riders to explain what’s happening and what were [their] plans for 2022”

Meanwhile, Raul Fernandez allegedly isn’t completely sold on the idea of moving to MotoGP after what would be his rookie season in Moto2

He hinted towards this while addressing media after FP2 in Austria by saying “I don’t have the same opinion as KTM”

“But, at the end this is life and we are big boys no? Sometimes it’s like this and is difficult, but I want to focus on Moto2”, he added


Do you believe that SRT will be forced to withdraw from MotoGP as well?

ViñalesRidingAgain