MotoGP Rider Maverick Viñales Suspended From Austrian Round

Yamaha has suspended the Spanish rider due to irregular operation of his motorcycle.

By: Enrico Punsalang

Aug 13, 2021 at 12:40am ET

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With MotoGP action back in full swing after a long summer break, the world’s most spectacular motorcycle racing series has already brought us loads of surprises in the recently concluded Styrian round held at the Red Bull Ring. With a literal fiery start, and an unexpected victor in the form of Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martín, things are already pretty spicy.

Little did we know that things were about to get even hotter. In the latest news to come out of the racing series, Monster Energy Yamaha rider Maverick Viñales has been withdrawn from this weekend’s Austrian round, also to be held in the Red Bull Ring. Yamaha made the formal announcement on Thursday, August 12, 2021. As for the reason why Viñales was issued the suspension, it would turn out that the Spaniard was misbehaving during the Styrian GP, and was operating his Yamaha YZR-M1 race bike in an “irregular manner.”

The exact press release by the MotoGP stated: “Yamaha’s conclusion is that the rider’s actions could have potentially caused significant damage to the engine of his YZR-M1 bike which could have caused serious risks to the rider himself and possibly posed a danger to all other riders in the MotoGP race.” With regards to what exactly Viñales was doing to his motorcycle in last weekend’s race has yet to be explicitly revealed. However, it’s more than likely it had something to do with the way he was managing the throttle of his race bike.

According to popular independent motorcycle racing Instagram page, Everything Moto Racing, it appears that Viñales was intentionally trying to cause damage to the YZR-M1 by revving it “incredibly hard, and riding around with it on the limiter lapping five to seven seconds off the pace.” Clearly, something is amiss between the Spanish rider and Monster Energy Yamaha, and it’s safe to say that following this incident, their relationship will head further south.