I don’t know whether Vinales really has it or not, but he was reputedly leaving Yamaha if they didn’t make the bike suit him instead of continuing to go Valentino’s way. FQ was very fast at least on the satellite bike if not quite having the racecraft yet, and the Petronas manager seems concerned about the direction things might take with Rossi riding for Petronas. The younger riders seem to lean more towards the way Lorenzo went, including Zarco.
If Valentino has a full factory bike I guess Petronas can still run the other bike and rider their way, so he might be peeved about not bringing on a prospect they had in mind rather than anything else.
The Nastro Azzuro single bike team with a factory bike and crew he had at the start of his premier class career has been said to have been Valentino’s preferred/ideal setup, so maybe this is as close as he can get to that now. Unfortunately the intervening 20 years might militate against similar success.
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