Yamaha rider Maverick Viñales had a good launch from fourth and held his position into the first corner of Sunday afternoon's British Grand prix held on the Silverstone circuit.
With his teammate attempting to take off at the front, Vinales decided to make an assertive start, swiftly moving past Cal Crutchlow for third. He then lined up Marc Marquez overtaking him on lap 3, so he could chase Rossi, who by then had created a gap of over one second.
The Spaniard pushed to the limit and looking threatening with an, on average, 0.5s margin to his teammate. He nearly was able to make his first attempt at taking over the lead, when Andrea Dovizioso made a move with ten laps to go, which was the start of an intense battle for second place. Viñales fell back behind Marquez to fourth, while the scrapping allowed Rossi some breathing space, but the battle wasn't over.
As Marquez retired from the race, the number 25 rider was able to fight his way back to the leading group and passed his teammate for second place with two laps to go. He then put the hammer down, giving Dovizioso a run for his money, but came just 0.114s short and finished the race in second place.
“It was difficult, but I think we managed the race really well, especially with the electronics, we were really strong in all the areas. I think we did a good job,” he said. “This weekend we came back, feeling strong again and that‘s the positive point, especially during the last part of the race, during which we weren‘t really strong before. This time we were the fastest on the last laps, so we are going to try to be more competitive and even stronger in the next races.”
“I knew that on the last laps my bike was really good, so I was just trying to keep the pace and the concentration and save the tyres until the end. For sure, I was able to do really good laps in the beginning, but then the tyre would have dropped a lot, so I was thinking about doing the other step: go slowly in the beginning and pushing at the end and this was the result.”
“I was catching Dovi on the last lap and trying my best. I set one of my best laps on the last one, so I gave it everything to catch him, but honestly, today, second place was the best we could do. We have to be happy that we‘re working in the correct way again.”
