Having topped FP4 at the Le Mans circuit in France on Saturday, Yamaha Racing's maverick Viñales stepped aboard his YZR-M1 with great confidence at the start of the qualifying session.
As one of the last men to leave pit lane, he enjoyed some free track space and went directly on the attack. He took the top spot with his first flying lap, a 1'33.134s, before being pushed back to sixth place when the pace quickened.
With more than seven and a half minutes to go, he came into the pits for a fresh set of rubber.
Two minutes later the Spaniard was back on track, now in seventh place in the timings, and had just enough time left for three more hot laps. He put his mind to it and produced a strong 1‘32.146s for provisional pole, but further underlined his incredible speed with a 1‘31.994s on his next lap that earned him his second pole position of the season.
“It was a tricky qualifying, because the track was not at its best, but anyway our bike is really good here,” he said. “We knew we could do it, so I just tried to concentrate and push to the best of my ability and bring home the pole position. We have to be really careful with the weather, we also have to pay a lot of attention if we have a flag to flag, a wet race or even on the dry, we still have to improve. We have to work tonight and try to improve for tomorrow.”
