Valentino Rossi comments on ex-teammate Maverick Vinales’ struggles

Vinales has been unable to replicate his best MotoGP finishes (twice he finished third in the standings, once fourth) since leaving Yamaha for Aprilia.

The now-retired Rossi was in attendance at last weekend’s Austrian MotoGP to see his ex-teammate endure two awful starts which cost him possible podiums.

“In my opinion, starts have an important technical part, but we mustn't forget the psychological part,” Rossi was quoted by MOW.

“That is how the rider feels in his head when he is there alone when the race starts, which is always a critical moment. 

“It's not necessarily a question of reaction, because there is the rider who is calm at the start, the one who is excited, concentrated, and there is instead the one who would like to get the result but it hasn't come for a while, or knows that he can do it but is tense. 

“In the end it's a fraction of a second. 

“Vinales seems really strong to me, [Saturday] he impressed me on the track, he was the one who went faster, the one who rode better, but in the end he takes home little. 

“Maybe he suffers a little from this thing. Because it remains a bit unfinished; he's always the one who goes fastest in practice but then in the end something is always missing on Sunday. 

• Vinales: “It’s mandatory to improve race starts, I am doing all that I can”

“Either he starts badly, or he touches someone.

“Vinales didn't get off to a bad start [on Sunday]. He didn't really start, he got off the [start] a hair later.”

Vinales fell from second to seventh in the sprint race in Austria before Turn 1.

In the grand prix he dropped very quickly to eighth.

His reaction was: “It's mandatory to improve it, there is no other way. 

"But as a rider, I cannot do anything else, I am doing all that I can, all that they ask me to do, and it's something the technicians have to improve."