Marco Bezzecchi
Maverick Vinales will miss the Spanish Grand Prix through another injury setback, much to the displeasure of KTM and his team, Tech3.
Top Gun has pulled out of the race in Jerez to undergo surgery for a displaced screw in his left shoulder. He sustained the injury back at the German GP last year and went on to miss eight races.
Maverick Vinales is OUT for the Spanish Grand Prix
And Tech3 will only field one rider, with Pol Espargaro also injured
Vinales has been struggling with his shoulder in 2026, having pulled out of the United States GP due to complications with the injury. He had tried to race at COTA and this weekend at Jerez, but the Tech3 rider will once again remain on the sidelines.
The manner in which the Spaniard has gone about dealing with his injury trouble has not sat well with his team. In fact, Vinales kept his shoulder injury a secret from KTM and ignored doctors’ instructions and kept racing.
KTM and Tech3 are ‘not happy at all’ with Maverick Vinales’ injury setbacks
KTM boss Pit Beirer says he has lost patience with Vinales over his injuries. With Pol Espargaro also unavailable, Enea Bastianini will be the only Tech3 bike on the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix.
This has cost the team valuable track mileage, as well as sponsor events, as journalist Simon Patterson notes. KTM and Tech3 are furious with Vinales’ handling of the situation.
“This ‘I’m fit to ride. Oh, wait, I’m not. Oh, I’m fit to ride. Oh, I’m not’ on and off thing, where this could have been resolved at the end of last season if he’d done what he was told,” said Patterson via The Race MotoGP Podcast.
“If he quite openly told us what the doctors told him he had to do and then ignored them, and I know from some internal conversations that KTM and especially the Tech3 side of things are not happy about that at all.
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“They come from a world where, I guess, F1, you always have a replacement. You always have a sub on hand. You never have a situation where you don’t have two cars on track.
“And they’ve lost, it feels like a substantial amount of their track time, of their sponsor presence, etc, because Maverick has been making these stupid last minute decisions to not ride because he’s not fit,
“Which don’t get me wrong, if he’s not fit, he shouldn’t be riding, but he’s not been fit since like August, and he still keeps trying and trying and trying and making things worse.
“Even this latest situation where he got diagnosed before the weekend in Texas, and then insisted on still trying to ride the bike and had to pull out halfway through the weekend. Nobody inside KTM can be particularly happy about that because it’s just unprofessional.”
READ MORE: Everything to know about Maverick Vinales from career stats to net worth
How damaging are Maverick Vinales’ injuries for his MotoGP future?
Vinales’ injury problems are not only damaging for him now, but also for his long-term future in MotoGP. It looked like he had secured a contract with the factory KTM team for 2027, but now, that has been thrown into disarray.
Vinales’ contract has been ‘suspended’ as the Austrian outfit weigh up their options for next season. They have signed Alex Marquez for 2027, and now Top Gun’s chances of partnering with him are in doubt.
Even if he can stay fit after this setback, he is facing an uphill battle to stay on the grid. MotoGP teams are looking for non-Spanish riders for 2027 as Liberty Media tries to get more nationalities onto the grid.
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