Tech3 MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales has revealed he lost five kilograms in muscle mass as a result of a long-term shoulder injury, as he gets set to return at the Valencia Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The 10-time grand prix winner injured his shoulder in a crash during qualifying at the German Grand Prix back in July.<\/p>\n
The complicated injury has seen him miss numerous rounds since, with Maverick Vinales<\/a>\u2019 current absence dating back to the Indonesian Grand Prix weekend.<\/p>\n He had planned to return last weekend in Portugal, but elected against this in order to prioritise his fitness for the final round and the post-race test.<\/p>\n Speaking ahead of his return in Valencia, Vinales told the media, including Crash.net: \u201cYes, for sure [I\u2019ve lost weight], because I cannot work very much with the heavy weights.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI must go softly just now. All season I was 67kg, more or less, and then when I came back from the injury for Montmelo, Indonesia, I was 63kg, 62kg.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I lost quite a lot. But, in any case, I\u2019m gaining now again, I\u2019m 63kg, 64kg, so it\u2019s not a big disadvantage at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest problem for me was the pain, especially in Mandalika.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I changed direction, I was feeling pain, and the pain was inhibiting the muscles.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I was thinking \u2018go\u2019, and nothing happened. That\u2019s the biggest difference.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n He added: \u201cObviously, I\u2019m not 100%, but I\u2019m not far from it. I have some references outside of MotoGP bikes, with the 600, the 1000, and I\u2019ve been very competitive in terms of lap time.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I feel quite ready for this race. I need to see my level with the MotoGP, because obviously it demands a different way of power.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, it was an improvement. It\u2019s just the tendons need a little bit more time to feel comfortable in the weird positions that we do in MotoGP.<\/p>\n \u201cIn normal life, I feel completely recovered. But in certain positions on the bike, the tendons are saying \u2018a little bit more time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Vinales \u201cquite surprised\u201d by Espargaro\u2019s stand-in form<\/p>\n KTM<\/a> test rider Pol Espargaro<\/a> stood in for Maverick Vinales on several occasions during his injury layoffs, the latter heaping praise on his compatriot.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cHe was doing so good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, he was taking care of my crew, which was very important.<\/p>\n \u201cHe did well, to be honest. I think Portimao was not easy for him, because he has not so good memories in Portugal [from his crash in 2023].<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think it was good for him to ride to forget those memories. So, probably now he\u2019s much better. But he rode really good. At some tracks, we were quite surprised, especially on Fridays.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech3 MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales has revealed he lost five kilograms in muscle mass as a result of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,40801,806,805,803,804,26895,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-282796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-maverick-vinales","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-red-bull-ktm-tech3","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}