Seventh place for Maverick Vinales i🐈n the Malaysian MotoGP was better than he h𒁏ad expected before the race.

Vinales perhaps benefitted from the non-starting factory KTMs of Brad Binder an🅷d Jack Miller after their involvement in the crash that brought out the red flag on lap one of the first start in Sepang.

But the Spanish rider waﷺs in any case happy with his race, and didn’t seem to🌳 suffer as much with the heat generated by the RS-GP as some of his fellow Aprilia riders, notably Aleix Espargaro and Raul Fernandez who finished 13th and 16th, respectively.

“It was hot, a good race,” Vinales said. “Far from the top, but consistent, a consistღent race.

“To be honest, P7 was more than wh♓at we expected, so this is really good; I could ride quite good through all the race, try to do the rhythm, try to don’t f*ck the tyres.

“So, I was controlling a lot, and nothing else. I think that was the maximum from what we have, and we need to conti𝔍nue.

“But꧂ the consistency is good: we are doing sixth, seventh, ei🌜ghth consistently on the races so we need to keep going.”

Braking has often been an issue for Apr൲ilia in MotoGP recently, but choosing the largest front brake disc available on Sunday helped Vinales, as well as an update from Aprilia.

“We used the 355mm [front] brake,” he said, “and also one specific th💯ing that we couldn’t bring that maintains the tyre a little bit cooler, so was more grippy.

“[I made] less mistakes, so I could be more precise, so it was𝔉 better.”