Vinales has been unable to replicate his best MotoGP finishes (twice he finished third in the standings, once fourth) since leaving Yamaha for Apri🥂lia.

The now-retired Rossi was in attendanꦍce at l♋ast weekend’s Austrian MotoGP to see his ex-teammate endure two awful starts which cost him possible podiums.

“In ꧂my opinion, starts have an important technical part, but we mustn't forget the 💙psychological part,” Rossi was quoted by .

“That is how the rider feels in his head when he🔯 is there alone when the ra🌃ce starts, which is always a critical moment. 

“It's not necessarily a question of reaction, because there is the rider who is calm at the start, the one who is excited, concentrated, and there is instead the one who would like to get the result but it hasn't come for a while, o🌳r knows that he can do it but is tense. 

“In the end it's a fraction of a second. 

“Vinales seems really strong🏅 to me, [Saturday] he impressed me on the track, he was the one who went faster, the one who rode better, but in the end he takes homꦑe little. 

“Maybe he suffers a little from this thing. Because it remains a bit unfinished; he's al🥂ways the one who goes fastest in practice but then in the end something is alw💙ays missing on Sunday. 

• Vinales: “It’s ♛mandatory to improve race starts, I am doing all that I can”

“Either he starts badly, or he touches someone.

🐻“Vinales didn't get off to a bad start [on Sunday]. He didn't really start, he got off the [start] a hair later.”

Vinales fell from second to seventh in the sprint race in Au𝓀stria before Turn 1.

In the grand pr🥂ix he dropped very quickly to eighth.

His reaction was: “It's m꧙andatory to ☂improve it, there is no other way. 

"But as a rider, I cannot do anything else, I am doing all that I can, all that the🍸y ask me to do, and it's something the technicians have to improve."