Seventh place for Maverick Vinales in the Malaysiaꦯn MotoGP was better than he had expected before the race.

Vinales perhaps benefitted f𝐆rom the non-starting factory KTMs of Brad Binder aꦚnd 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 was in any case happy with his race, and didn’t seem to suffer as mu👍ch 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 consistent race.

“To be honest, P7 was more than what 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 lo🎶t🐻, and nothing else. I think that was the maximum from what we have, and we need to continue.

“But th❀e consistency💃 is good: we are doing sixth, seventh, eighth consistently on the races so we need to keep going.”

Braking 🐻has often been an issue for Aprilia in MotoGP rece💎ntly, 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 thing that we couldn’t bring that maintains ꦰthe tyre a little bit c༺ooler, so was more grippy.

“[I made] less mistakes, so I could be more precise, so i🐻t wဣas better.”