The ambitious partnership between Maverick Vinales and Jorge Lorenzo is almost certainly the last-ditch effort to coax out true greatness from one of MotoGP's most peculiar riders of the recent era.
Vinales has won three premier-class races - which puts him 25th all time - on three different bikes and has often sporadically looked like a champion, but never for enough consecutive rounds to sustain even a single title bid.
The perception of him as a rider whose achievements - though considerable, especially if you include the 2013 Moto3 crown - are far outweighed by his talent is widespread enough for his new rider coach to openly address it, too.
Lorenzo told Marca last year that, in his eyes, Vinales' talent outstrips that of all of his rivals. "I believe that riders with less talent and speed than Mack [Vinales' nickname] have fought for and won MotoGP titles. Spaniards, Italians, Americans. Why can't Maverick do it?"
Vinales addressed the media on Tuesday following the joint KTM/Tech3 KTM launch for 2026 - and most of the questions to him were either directly or tangentially related to his 'performance coach' Lorenzo and the work they're doing together.
Here's what he's revealed - and why the pair's masterplan sounds more convincing than it had done at first.
Who initiated it?
There was a "common" interest in working together dating a while back, Vinales claimed, and the first conversations took place after his memorable Grand Prix of the Americas double win in 2024.
"There were some talks but I was not able to do it in Aprilia," Vinales said - but he elaborated subsequently that Aprilia was "absolutely not" against it.
Rather, it was Vinales's own life - and specifically the birth of his second daughter in 2023 - that apparently made him reticent to commit to the kind above-and-beyond effort the Lorenzo tie-in would've constituted.
"It was a matter of family, how I was with my family, because I had my [second] little kid, in 2024 she was very young, not even one year old, so I needed to take care and help my wife also.
“Outside of the bike I have a life, and sometimes like in the past it was a bit more difficult. Now I have enough confidence, you know, the girls are a little bit bigger, and now it's much more easy for me, so I can really be 24 hours [a day] for the MotoGP."
What does Vinales want from Lorenzo?
Vinales' natural speed has never been in question, but he is not the grid's most robust rider in terms of extracting that speed.
Though that wasn't how he put it, it was made clear that he hopes for Lorenzo's systematised, ultra-professional approach to help with this, beyond just learning some tips and tricks from the three-time MotoGP champion - even if that is also on the cards.
"What I expect, to be honest, is improving my technical side on the motorbike," said Vinales.
"To change the riding style is hard because I already have everything automatic - but to have some tricks under my sleeve, how you manage the gas, or how you brake, or the experience of Jorge on the racing, the experience from a long-time champion, I think this is really a key to make the next step for me.
"Obviously I've trained [this off-season] very different from the other years - very-very different, it's another way of preparing the season. If I want something to happen, I have to do something different, and this year I did something very different.
"I rode the bikes quite a lot, especially in the worst situation I can ride - which before I was avoiding. Especially also I did a step forward on difficult conditions.
"After that, Jorge brings obviously a lot of, how to say... like, decisiveness just to train for a goal, which is I think important, not just making laps.
"And this is another thing I was doing - I was doing long runs, trying to understand, but never working in a special area. And with Jorge we focus a lot on working on every inch of the track."
Are their similarities a factor?
Though he hasn't climbed the same heights and is running out of time to make anywhere near the same impact, Vinales has always seemed like the heir apparent to Lorenzo on the MotoGP grid.
A mercurial rider who can be a metronome leading from the front and has no issue scoring poles, is on the smoother end of the riding style spectrum, but is quite susceptible to outlier conditions.
Vinales' limitations will surely always be there to some extent but Lorenzo seems like a valid aspirational target for him to chase.
"When I jumped to Yamaha, I jumped on his bike," Vinales recalled, having been spectacularly fast on his very first contact with that Yamaha M1 vacated by Lorenzo at the end of 2016.
"And for me it suits really well. So for me he's really good at understanding the bike, and really seeing also from the outside what you probably need. We did a lot of tests here with the street bikes, and I think he has great ideas to really bring my riding style to the maximum.
"And as you mentioned, there are some similarities. For sure I'm a little bit more aggressive on brakes, but the kind of smoothness in the corner is similar. So probably he has also good ideas when we ride the MotoGP."
Can the personalities work?
As mentioned by literally everyone in the seconds following the announcement, these are two very particular, often strong-headed personalities - and so there is potential here for a powder keg going off.
It remains to be seen whether those fears will be proven wrong. For now, "the relationship has been fantastic", according to Vinales.
"We have a lot of fun. I'm surprised, too, because I knew another Jorge, from the past. The last words we had were not nice.
"I had a different expectation, but we are enjoying it. I think he's on another time of his life, and he's enjoying as well now coming back to the bikes, also because he saw that I'm giving the maximum. I think this is the key."
Vinales also provided an example of how he can benefit from some of that Lorenzo assertiveness.
"Of course during this winter season Jorge pushed me to go out in any condition where I didn't like to go out. But I think this is the key of this relationship.
"He's strong - I remember one time the track was really with a lot of water, a lot of water, and it was the first time I rode after my injury on the water, in rain conditions. I was ready to go home. I was like 'OK, I go home, and tomorrow I come back'. But no, I rode, he made me ride.
"And I think these kind of things unlock a lot of potential. And this is very important.
"I think Jorge will bring the intensity I need outside the MotoGP bike."
What level is Vinales at now?
Vinales expects Lorenzo to accompany him in testing and all the early rounds, and hopes he does the full season by his side.
This is a partnership that probably needs to bear some fruit early on - these aren't the two most patient characters, though Vinales would probably dispute that given how he handled the KTM crisis last year.
But Vinales has some runway to navigate. Though injury wrote off half of his 2025, the other half was good, to the point where KTM is clearly a bit enamoured with him. It has been reported by AS that, faced with Pedro Acosta's likely exit, it is prioritising Vinales as a factory signing for 2027.
In the meantime, there's the matter of completing his healing process after the injury that wrecked the second half of his 2025.
"I've been working a lot, especially on the fitness side," he said.
"I was really skinny after the injury, so I was 61kg, more or less, now I'm 65-67 depending on how I train. But I feel much stronger than when I ended the season.
"So, it was very important for us to understand, with the Red Bull Athlete Performance [Center in Thalgau, Austria] if the power was back. It was really good news - the power is back, even a bit better than in last year's tests, when I was fully fit. So we did a really good job with all my medical team, to arrive to the first races stronger.
"Now for me the question mark will be if, when I ride the MotoGP, I have pain or not. But at the moment I am riding the 1000, the 600 [road bikes], all kinds of bikes - the shoulder responds really well, I'm doing a lot of strength and also it's not crying too much, the shoulder.
"So this is a good sign. However, I think for the bike I will be fit. Obviously for playing volleyball or tennis I will tell you absolutely not, but to race on a motorbike, which is the important thing, I think I will be fully fit in the Sepang test."
