The relationship between Yamaha and Maverick Vinales goes from bad to worse as the Spanish rider has been suspended from the Austrian GP by the Yamaha team.
Maverick Vinales who is set to part ways with Yamaha at the end of the 2021 MotoGP season had a really poor weekend at the Styrian Grand Prix. He had a promising start to the race before the session was red-flagged following an incident between the returning Dani Pedrosa and Lorenzo Savadori which caused a huge fire, but Vinales then stalled his bike on the grid before the warm-up lap began and as a result of that, the Spaniard was forced to start the race from the pit exit. That took him hurtling down the pack with the Spaniard finishing the race a lowly 19th, which only added to his poor form this season.
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Things got worse for Vinales when Yamaha released a statement saying, “Yamaha regrets to announce that Maverick Viñales’ entry to this weekend’s Austrian MotoGP event has been withdrawn by the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team. His absence follows the suspension of the rider by Yamaha due to the unexplained irregular operation of the motorcycle by the rider during last weekend‘s Styria MotoGP race. Yamaha‘s decision follows an in-depth analysis of telemetry and data over the last few days. Yamaha‘s conclusion is that the rider‘s actions could have potentially caused significant damage to the engine of his YZR-M1 bike which could have caused serious risks to the rider himself and possibly posed a danger to all other riders in the MotoGP race. The rider will not be replaced at the Austrian GP”
This incident adds to the souring relationship between Yamaha and Vinales which has constantly been deteriorating since winning the Qatar Grand Prix in the first round of the World Championship.
[Image Credit: Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP]
Shashank Iyer