Yamaha’s woes continued in the 2018 MotoGP season after both their riders Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi finished outside the Top 10 in Austria’s qualifying session.
Project leader Kouji Tsuya addressed the media after the low-key result in Saturday’s qualifying where Vinales was only 11th and Rossi 14th. All weekend the two Yamaha riders had a tough time due to the continuing acceleration issues.
The riders knew it will be tough at Red Bull Ring but it only got worse as the weekend progressed. To add to their woes, Tsuya revealed Vinales faced a recurring senor problem which they are still investigating.
With the issues mounting, Tusya apologised to the riders stating that the team is working hard to solve the prevailing issues and will use the tests at Misano and Aragon to further find solutions to the troubles.
“Today, it was very difficult day for us,” he said. “We are struggling in the acceleration performance that is to adjust the power delivery. This track we knew it will be difficult for us because we couldn’t achieve the kind of the power delivery for riders.
“It was one reason for it to be the worst qualifying result for us. We have to apologise to the riders with less performance, especially the acceleration performance. Also Maverick today and also on Friday had some sensor problem – a technical problem on our bike.
“We faced it in FP1 and FP4 again, so we disturbed Maverick’s concentration too much. We are still investigating how we can solve this problem for tomorrow. But I just want to say sorry to riders.
“They are not [here] to concentrate on problems but to go faster to achieve better results in qualifying. We had some technical problems with Maverick and also some less performance problem now, we are struggling but we have to say sorry to out riders.
“We are working hard as ever to find the solutions for tomorrow in this race. We have a test in Misano before Silverstone and after that we have the test in Aragon as well to find the solution for these difficulties.
“At the moment, we will concentrate for tomorrow to get more better results for riders together,” he added. Despite the mounting issues, both Rossi and Vinales are still in the title fight albeit quite far off from Honda’s Marc Marquez.
Marquez sits on top with 181 points to Rossi in second with 132 and Vinales in fourth with 109. In the teams’ standings though, the Japanese manufacturer is leading with 241 points with Honda in second with 238.