Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales said he has no beef with Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Franco Morbidelli for their last lap clash in Argentina MotoGP race.
It was another topsy-turvy outing for Vinales, who dropped back again at the start of the Argentina MotoGP race before mounting a come back inside the Top 5. At the same time, Morbidelli rose to fourth at one stage, but dropped down midway.
Towards the end of the race, he was right on the tail of Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci and Vinales in the fight for sixth but out-braked in Turn 7 when he touched Vinales as they both crashed out from a sure seventh and eighth position.
It was no problem to Vinales though – even after the incident they shook hands as the Spaniard helped Morbidelli to get up. “I saw the replay and finally it was nothing you know,” said Vinales. “Franco, it’s the last lap, we all try to be at our best.
“One mistake, it is how it is. Maybe next race I do the same, it’s something you can’t explain. So nothing, no problems. But the bike wasn’t working perfectly, so we need to keep working and see if we can solve it for the next race.
“Honestly, I feel good at every track, we show good potential. It’s always in the race that we have an issue. When the bike is there, I’m always in the Top 3.” Whiles Vinales had the crash, teammate Valentino Rossi scored a fine second after his last lap move.
Meanwhile, Morbidelli explained his side of things with the Italian clarifying that his intention was not to pass but a double slipstream took him in and he unfortunately touched. “It was a good race for us,” he started.
“We were fighting on top and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. I felt strong in some areas of the track and I managed to do a good race until the last lap and then unfortunately I was fighting for sixth position and yeah, I just ran over into Maverick.
“I didn’t want to do any overtake but with the double slipstream I couldn’t stop properly, and maybe he wanted to cut the line to overtake Petrucci again so me arriving a bit too fast and him stopping a bit more to cut the line and we both ended up on the ground.
“It’s a big shame, a bit pity for both of us but luckily we’re both fine, so this is good. It’s important to go to the next race to keep the level and keep improving.” The incident helped his teammate Fabio Quartararo to finish eighth to register his career’s best result.