Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales will be sidelined for at least four consecutive grands prix – as his absence won’t be limited to just a withdrawal from the Austria weekend.<\/p>\n
Vinales, who before his left shoulder injury at the Sachsenring hadn’t missed a single MotoGP round through injury, returned to riding at the Red Bull Ring but always suspected he might not make it through the weekend.<\/p>\n
That suspicion came true on Saturday, as Vinales did three laps in the opening qualifying segment before calling time on his weekend.<\/p>\n
But he stuck around at the track for his media duties – and confirmed afterwards that he will also sit out the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.<\/p>\n
Vinales acknowledged the Balaton Park circuit, which will host its first MotoGP races next weekend, is uniquely ill-suited to him trying to race himself back to fitness given the amount of changes of direction and expected physical exertion.<\/p>\n
“I think the layout for Hungary – probably one lap and I go home,” he quipped.<\/p>\n
He suggested he could’ve continued with the weekend here – and that he even felt better on Saturday morning than on Friday – but it wouldn’t have been wise for “safety”.<\/p>\n
“The main concern is to be safe – especially in terms of having a crash, more than anything else. Maybe I could ride, this is not impossible, but the main concern from the doctor is if I have a crash and everything is going much worse.”<\/p>\n
Vinales indicated he was advised by both the MotoGP doctors and the surgeon who operated on him, Dr Giuseppe Porcellini, not to push his luck.<\/p>\n
“The tendon seems quite OK. So I don’t have too much pain from the tendon. The thing is that they put two stitches in the labrum. That [creates] the rigidity, and if I crash the damage can be big.<\/p>\n
“I tried to not listen too much, I tried to ride, but now I understand what they mean. Even to battle on the bike [was really difficult].<\/p>\n
“If I start to push – for sure, if I do the quali and I do the sprint, I’m sorry, but I will push, I won’t ride for riding. Even when I was cruising, I was not that far [off] in Q1. [But] we need to understand if a step back is a bigger step forward in the following weeks.”<\/p>\n
Vinales will now focus on trying to recover at home and being in the best shape possible for the Catalan Grand Prix at Barcelona in early September.<\/p>\n
“I have three weeks to Montmelo [Barcelona] and see how I arrive – but I see that it’s a long way [to being fit].<\/p>\n
“Now I understand the doctors, when they told me ‘it’s two-three months’. I didn’t believe them until today.<\/p>\n
“We need to be realistic, the shoulder has its own terms. Clearly I sped up the recovery a lot, but I need more time.”<\/p>\n
Test rider Pol Espargaro was on standby for Vinales at the Red Bull Ring, but the substitution didn’t happen in time.<\/p>\n
But Vinales believes that Espargaro, if chosen to ride at Hungary, “can have a good opportunity”. He already performed impressively in relief of Vinales at Brno – and has the advantage of having tested at Balaton as part of MotoGP’s manufacturer testing at the new circuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech3 KTM MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales will be sidelined for at least four consecutive grands prix – as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-74045","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-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74045","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=74045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}