Vinales fastest, Rins suffers back injury

Maverick Vinales continued his impressive debut for Yamaha by topping the final day of the MotoGP post-season test at Valencia.

Signed as a replacement for Jorge Lorenzo, Vinales has settled in well at his new home as he clocked a 1:29.97s to top the times for the second consecutive day.

Vinales’ time came during the afternoon following a strong start from Honda’s Marc Marquez, who dipped underneath the Yamaha rider’s Tuesday benchmark early in the running.

In the end, the Silverstone MotoGP winner was 0.19s quicker than Marquez at the conclusion of the test.

The final day was halted for an hour when Suzuki riders Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone crashed in separate incidents at Turn 12.

Barriers at the corner required repair while Rins was carried from the scene by a stretcher.

Rins was transferred to hospital where he was diagnosed with two compressed vertebrae and expected to be sidelined for a month. Iannone escaped without injury.

Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso managed to fire his 2017 machine into third once the session resumed albeit 0.4s adrift of Vinales.

Iannone ended the day in fourth ensuring there were four different marques at the top of the timesheets.

Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was fifth ahead of LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi, who clocked an identical time in seventh.

New Ducati signing Jorge Lorenzo was eighth having jumped aboard the 2017 machine for the first time.

The top 10 was completed by Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Tech 3 Yamaha’s Jonas Folger.

Australia’s Jack Miller suffered an off before clocking a time good enough for 12th position, while KTM continued to improve with Pol Espargaro in 17th spot.

Result: MotoGP Valencia Test Day 2

Position	Rider	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Maverick Vinales	Yamaha	1:29.97s	–	76
2	Marc Marquez	Honda	1:30.17	0.196s	78
3	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1:30.44	0.468s	61
4	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	1:30.59	0.624s	51
5	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1:30.68	0.711s	41
6	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	1:30.70	0.734s	63
7	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1:30.70	0.734s	69
8	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	1:30.74	0.769s	66
9	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1:30.88	0.910s	61
10	Jonas Folger	Tech3 Yamaha	1:30.94	0.973s	63
11	Johann Zarco	Tech3 Yamaha	1:31.01	1.040s	61
12	Jack Miller	Honda	1:31.06	1.094s	59
13	Scott Redding	Pramac Ducati	1:31.11	1.143s	48
14	Alvaro Bautista	Aspar Ducati	1:31.18	1.211s	69
15	Hector Barbera	Avintia Ducati	1:31.24	1.269s	59
16	Michele Pirro	Pramac Ducati	1:31.81	1.841s	40
17	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1:31.85	1.878s	70
18	Tito Rabat	Honda	1:31.91	1.943s	61
19	Loris Baz	Avintia Ducati	1:32.16	2.186s	52
20	Bradley Smith	KTM	1:32.53	2.563s	59
21	Eugene Laverty	Aprilia	1:32.56	2.593s	57
22	Karel Abraham	Aspar Ducati	1:32.69	2.724s	41
23	Takuya Tsuda	Suzuki	1:33.30	3.330s	77
24	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1:33.76	3.786s	5