On the MotoGP side, the riders are currently on break in order to recover from a busy 2024 season. They still have time before getting back to business, as the 2025 season begins in March with a first Grand Prix in Thailand. But the news remains relevant during this off-season and a rider has just created a buzz by claiming to have lost a title because of Yamaha. It is through a documentary that Maverick Viñales looks back on his turbulent union with Yamaha, believing that the little attention received deprived him of the world champion title in 2017.
Viñales believes he lost the title in 2017 because of Yamaha
Having been a MotoGP rider for ten years now, Viñales started with Suzuki. But his talent was substantial, he ended up switching to Yamaha, where he had the difficult task of replacing Jorge Lorenzo. And Viñales’ debut with Yamaha had been grandiose, the Spaniard having won his first two races with his new team, in Qatar and Argentina, before also winning at the fifth Grand Prix of the season, in France. But after that, Viñales was no longer going to achieve the slightest victory of the year and constant disagreements with the team management began, as he explains in a documentary broadcast by DAZN in Spain, Maverick: dos vidas.
The latter thus assures that Yamaha made him lose the title in 2017 because of all these disagreements and he explains it. “When I joined Yamaha, I hit it like a missile. I arrived with a clear idea, an identified objective, and that’s the only thing I asked from Yamaha: I want to be world champion. I don’t want anything else, I only want that, the rest doesn’t interest me. When I got on the Yamaha at the Valencia test [fin 2016]I fell in love with it. I asked them not to touch it, I wanted that motorcycle, which was the one that Jorge had left. Bring me this bike to Qatar, because with this one I’m going to win the championship. But I arrived at Sepang [pour les tests de début d’année] et [je me suis demandé] ‘but where is this motorbike?’ I won the first race, I won the second, I won at Le Mans. [En France]it was one of the happiest days of my life, I won a fight against my idol, Valentino Rossi. But in Montmeló, a wave of change has begun. I didn’t understand anything, I said not to touch the motorcycle“, confides the Spanish rider, who ultimately stayed until mid-2021 with Yamaha before a resounding breakup and a departure for Aprilia, with visibly a lot of bitterness following this missed opportunity…
Also read on Auto Moto.com:
Join Auto-Moto on WhatsApp so you don’t miss any car and 2-wheel news!
Featured Podcasts
MEN LIFE
To summarize
On the MotoGP side, the riders are currently on break in order to recover from a busy 2024 season. They still have time before getting back to business, as the 2025 season begins in March with a first Grand Prix in Thailand.
