Viñales withdraws from Silverstone
Maverick Viñales will not race at Silverstone, where he will be replaced by Pol Espargaró. The Spanish rider continues to suffer the effects of the injury sustained at Sachsenring in 2025: since then, in fact, the real Viñales has hardly been seen, and the surgery at the beginning of the year has not improved his performance.
Viñales’ words
“During the summer break, we continued to try to understand why I couldn’t regain strength in the external rotation of my left arm, while the internal rotation had shown significant improvement in recent months“, explained #12.
“Further medical examinations revealed that, although my supraspinatus tendon is fully healed, I also have a small lesion in the infraspinatus that we only discovered last week. Now we are working on the best recovery plan“, he added. “This is not good news, given that the second part of the season starts right now. I don’t know how long it will take, but as always I will give my best to recover“.
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Espargaró’s words
Espargaró, who has competed in 70 MotoGP races for the Tech3 team, commented: “I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I am sad, it’s never nice to get on the bike in such a situation, when a rider is injured and cannot race, especially when it’s Maverick. It’s a real shame. On the other hand, racing is in my blood. I have raced all my life and I miss it a lot, so this is a great opportunity for me as well. I have been with Tech3 throughout my career and I feel part of the family, so I always feel comfortable when I return to this garage. I will need some time to readapt to the category, since I have mainly tested the RC16 for the new project and haven’t ridden the 1000cc for a while, but after a couple of sessions I will be ready. I look forward to racing and doing my best to bring Tech3 good results“.
Viñales’ new injury comes at a very delicate moment for the Spaniard, whose relationship with Tech3 has reached an all-time low. The rider accused the team of offering him a contract renewal and then tearing it up, later stating that his MotoGP career could end because of KTM. Just two days ago, TopGun vented on Instagram against speculation that he would be out of the World Championship by the end of the season. Precisely because of these tensions, Tech3 repeatedly emphasizes in the statement that the stop is only for Silverstone and is due exclusively to physical reasons. Unless there are further setbacks, Viñales is therefore expected to be back on track at Aragón.
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