- Maverick Vinales, 31, finished 13th of 16 starters in the Qatar Grand Prix and said he will quit racing if the medical scans this week find something broken, per Motorsport.com.
- The Tech3 KTM rider says his contract cuts his pay from the fourth missed round, and he has no seat for 2027.
- Portugal on Nov. 20 to 22 and Valencia on Nov. 27 to 29 are the last two rounds of the season, and Vinales says he has no motivation to ride them at half speed.
A Qualifying Crash From 2025 Still Decides How Vinales Rides
“And if I have something broken, I’ll stop. 100%. Because I can’t go any faster than I am going now.”
Vinales said it in Qatar, after the grand prix, and he did not leave room for a second reading. He will go through every examination a doctor can order, then decide. “I feel the same way as I did on Saturday. Next week, I’m going to undergo every possible medical examination: a CT scan, an MRI, an MR arthrogram… Everything possible to understand what is wrong with me.”
The list is long and the answer so far is short. Vinales has been fighting his left shoulder for more than a year. A qualifying crash at the Sachsenring in 2025 left him with a dislocated shoulder, a fracture of the greater tuberosity and damage to the supraspinatus ligament. Two operations followed. The first inserted a plate. The second, almost a year later, took it out after it became clear the plate was doing more harm than good. He stopped at the United States Grand Prix, round two of this season, to have that surgery.
He missed four races after the summer break when a muscle tear was discovered at the injury site. The Spaniard returned at the Japanese Grand Prix. Nothing after that has told him what is holding the shoulder back.
Saturday in Lusail: “I Don’t Know What’s Better”
The weekend began badly. Vinales finished 15th in the Saturday sprint and his words afterward were harsher than his result.
“There’s no point in continuing like this; I’m only hurting myself mentally.”
“It’s just going around in circles. I’m starting to find it hard to stand not going fast because of my physical condition.”
“I don’t know what’s better, whether to stop completely or keep going around aimlessly.”
“Tomorrow I could go out and finish last, but I don’t really feel like it.”
“What I want is to stop and get back to 100%, which I doubt will happen this year.”
He had left Sepang more optimistic, having reported a reduction in pain. Qatar took that back. The shoulder was still restricting him, and the situation was taking a significant emotional toll.
Sunday: Finishing, and Counting the Cost
Vinales did start the grand prix. He finished 13th out of 16 starters, ahead only of Jake Dixon, the stand-in for Joan Mir.
“Very tough,” Vinales said. “I had to use my right arm a lot and started to get arm pump, but I’m happy to finish the race and also to keep a good rhythm, which I wasn’t really expecting.”
“I tried to go forward, but it was complicated.”
“I will go to the doctor’s this week to make some scans and to see why this condition is not improving.”
His explanation of the race matched his words about the shoulder. “It’s very difficult. It’s complicated because, even though we had good pace, making progress is very difficult. Everything you lose at the start while fighting your way through the field, you can’t make up at the end. But anyway, two more races,” he said in Qatar.
Then he spelled out the stakes of the scans.
“If something is broken, I’ll stop because there is no point in continuing. I can’t improve, and I don’t like being at the back. I hate every lap I spend in this situation.”
“So if I find out that there is nothing positive and that I can’t improve, I’ll stop. I have no motivation to continue because, if I feel like this, there is no point in getting on a bike and riding at 50%.”
“So we’ll see if something is broken and whether I can fix it or not. Maybe I’ll need surgery, or perhaps I can recover gradually by staying at home and following a proper rehabilitation programme. If that’s not possible, then for me, it’s over, because this is really very difficult.”
Those three paragraphs hold the whole range of outcomes. A break means he stops. Surgery is possible. A slow recovery at home is possible. A shoulder with no clear answer, and no improvement, leaves him with the motivation problem he described.
Racing for a Paycheck
At Phillip Island in October, Vinales explained why he keeps racing.
“For me, racing like this makes no sense, because I’m the first one who doesn’t want to be running at the back, and because I’m having a really hard time. My shoulder hurts, but if I stay at home, I don’t get paid.”
Vinales says his agreement with KTM lets him miss three grands prix before deductions begin from his agreed salary, and that the deductions depend on how many rounds he sits out.
“There’s nothing I can do. Obviously, I got injured in Q1 while riding for KTM, but the contracts you sign are what they are. You agree that you can miss three races, and from the fourth onwards they start deducting money.”
On the Indonesia and Japan back to back weekends, he said:
“During the back-to-back races in Indonesia and Japan, I had a really tough time. I came back with bursitis and fluid in my shoulder, and the ligaments were in a really bad state as well. I needed a week to recover. The arm needs a proper period of rehabilitation, and over there I pushed it too far.”
That Indonesian weekend, covered in Vinales’s worst race at Mandalika, ended with him last and 21 seconds off the next finisher.
Such clauses are not exclusive to KTM. Most teams include them. Vinales wants the riders’ association that MotoGP competitors now appear determined to establish to push for a change.
“We need to put a lot of pressure on them to change this, because this is a dangerous sport and injuries are part of it. It’s happened to Toprak [Razgatlioglu] now: one silly crash and he’ll miss six races,” Vinales said. Razgatlioglu’s rookie season ended early with shoulder surgery.
From Second Place at Lusail to the Back of the Field
The Qatar Grand Prix has a different meaning for Vinales now than it did in 2025. He was contesting one of his first races on the KTM Tech3 bike, challenged Marc Marquez for the win and crossed the line in second. A tire pressure penalty then stripped him of the result and dropped him to 14th.
His return to Lusail in 2026 left him 13th, still struggling with the left shoulder. The slide from that afternoon to this one cost him more than results. His poor returns and the rounds he missed also cost him his place on next year’s grid, and he has no seat for 2027.
Phillip Island showed what the gap feels like. The circuit is his favorite, with one MotoGP victory and three podiums, and he went there in October to say goodbye to it. On Friday and Saturday he struggled badly, hampered by pain and restricted movement in the upper left side of his torso. He retired on lap seven of the sprint with pain, swelling and the unnatural riding position he has to adopt on the bike.
A Joke About Portimao, and an Honest Answer
Journalists in Qatar joked that Vinales would be doing Pol Espargaro a favor if Espargaro had to replace him at the Portuguese Grand Prix. Portimao brings back painful memories for the younger Espargaro brother, who suffered serious injuries there in 2023. Espargaro already filled in for Vinales at Silverstone and Aragon while the shoulder kept Vinales out.
Vinales replied.
“Yeah, I know. But I wish I could be at 100%. My problem is that I’m not recovering. So I am starting to ask myself a lot of questions,” Vinales replied.
“The team are giving me a lot of support. They understand that I’m injured and that I’m doing everything I can to avoid stopping, to avoid getting off the bike and to finish the weekend.”
“So, as I said, I feel the same way as yesterday. Ultimately, I feel that I could go much faster, but I’m physically limited and I can’t manage it. On top of that, the feeling with the bike isn’t fantastic either. But I just can’t go fast,” he said.
What the Scans Decide
Vinales is 31 and turns 32 in January. He has won in MotoGP and now spends his weekends asking whether a lap at 50% is worth the trouble. The scans will not give him a 2027 seat. They can tell him whether the shoulder is broken, whether surgery or rehabilitation is the next step, and whether Portimao on Nov. 20 to 22 and Valencia on Nov. 27 to 29 belong to him or to a stand-in.
No result has been announced. Until one is, the last two rounds of his season sit on a doctor’s schedule, and the man who said “it’s over” if the answer is bad is waiting on the results.
