Yamaha rider Maverick Viñales used FP1 as the first occasion to remind race fans and rivals of his strong form at the Silverstone Circuit.
Last year‘s British Grand Prix winner started the morning Free Practice session with a competitive pace.
He worked diligently on his bike‘s settings throughout, making his statement in the final stages after the flag went out. He topped the FP1 standings with a 2'02.130s best time and a 0.519s margin to his closest rival.
The Spaniard gave another strong performance in the second 45-minute session.
Directly on the pace, he posted low 2‘02s and held on to fifth place until the final minutes. Having been pushed back to tenth position by rivals setting hot laps, Viñales felt encouraged to put his head down in a 'mini time attack'.
He fired up his Yamaha once more and dropped a 2‘01.168s to set the third fastest time of the day, 0.271s from the front.
“I feel good. Honestly, with the race pace we were quite competitive and I felt great on the bike again,” he said. “I was riding in my own style and it was really nice to be as competitive again as we were at the start of the season. In the time attack I didn‘t feel as good, especially with the front. It was the first time I tried the hard tyre, so I was not trusting the bike enough. Anyway, I‘m there, so I‘m happy and quite confident that we can do a really good job tomorrow.”
After FP2 the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rider successfully completed the test of the new flag-to-flag bike swap procedure with positive thoughts on its possible implementation in the future
“In my opinion the new flag-to-flag procedure is quite good,” he said. “Later we have to decide with all the riders and Dorna at the Safety Commission, but I think it was quite OK. The space was a lot bigger, so for me it was nice.”
