Maverick Vinales 'very upset', 'will copy everything Quartararo does'

Maverick Vinales arrives at the Dutch MotoGP 'very upset' with his last place finish at the Sachsenring, while the lack of answers from Yamaha means he will now 'copy everything' team-mate Fabio Quartararo does to his bike.

Vinales said the result in Germany was not only his worst in MotoGP but possibly his worst since first throwing a leg over a motorcycle as a child.

Yet just three months ago, Vinales and his team were celebrating a perfect start to the season with victory in Qatar, his ninth in the premier-class and eighth on the M1.

But that only serves to make the difficulties that have followed, culminating in the rock-bottom Sachsenring ride, even more perplexing.

Since Qatar 1, Vinales has finished in the top-six just twice and dropped 56 points behind new team-mate and title leader Fabio Quartararo, who has three wins and five podiums from eight rounds.

"I don’t feel very respected as a rider because I have never been in this position before: finishing last in one race. I don’t remember any race in my life since I was a kid. Basically it is for that that I am very upset," Vinales explained at Assen on Thursday.

The #12 has grown frustrated at the lack of answers for issues such as rear grip problems, yet has also occasionally managed lap times that have put him top of free practice sessions and the recent Catalunya test.

A shock change of crew chief from Esteban Garcia to Silvano Galbusera began well with fifth place in the Catalunya race, his equal best since Qatar. But then came the Sachsenring misery.

"The way things are going is that I don’t understand anything. The problem is that when I try to find a solution [from the team], the answer is the same and that’s ‘I don’t know’," he said.

"For me what is very strange is Qatar 1: how I can be with that superiority to the rest and then it is all gone. I went from first to last. Maybe here I can be first again. It is pretty strange and as a rider it is complicated for the motivation.

"It is tough to accept but in the end we don’t know what is going on. I am always asking the same: ‘why in Qatar was it working acceptable and now we are in this position?’ For me it is pretty strange and difficult to accept."

In what appears an act of desperation, Vinales revealed that he will simply copy Quartararo's bike set-up this weekend at Assen. That is despite explaining 'it should not be like this' since each MotoGP rider needs to use a set-up that suits their own riding style.

Pol Espargaro plans to do the same with his team-mate Marc Marquez, but Espargaro is new to the Honda and wants to clarify his weak points, while Vinales has been at Yamaha since 2017 (when Quartararo was still a rookie in Moto2).

"For sure one solution is to put the same bike as Fabio, same electronics, same clicks, same suspension, same everything to see what is going on because we have solved nothing. So here in Assen I will copy everything. Everything. And we will see," Vinales said.

"It should not be like this. It should be that you make your own set-up and make the bike for your own riding style but in this team I always follow the rest. It is like this. And I am forced to do it because I cannot continue in this way; losing time, wasting time and losing the feeling with the bike.

"In Germany I crashed without reason. Without pushing. This weekend I will follow. He put stronger suspension? I will do the same. More preload? I will do the same. We need to adapt, that’s true, and I will take risks but at least I will be with the same as the guy I have on the other side of the garage."