Marquez says Vinales “one step in front” at Assen

While first practice was topped by Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci, it was Vinales who set the pace in the afternoon running.

The Spaniard’s gap over satellite Yamaha rider Jonas Folger was nearly four tenths, while the best non-Yamaha rider was Marquez in third, 0.652s adrift.

While Marquez admitted it is difficult to judge everybody’s pace because of used tyres, he thinks Yamaha and Vinales are looking better than the rest.

“It is difficult to understand everybody’s pace on used tyres, but even like this it looks like all Yamaha riders, especially Vinales, are one step in front of us,” Marquez said. “We are working to try to be better.

Marquez also complained about the stability of his Honda, with the windy conditions and fast corners making the bike shake a lot.

“Stability is one of the things that we have been quite happy about since [the beginning of the] season,” he said. “But here there are almost corners, so it’s really windy, and the bike is shaking a lot, especially the front.

“[I’m riding] little bit careful at the moment because I can’t have a similar crash like in Le Mans.

“We are working there we are trying to understand this point, but it is difficult because Ducati is also shaking a little bit but the problem is that Yamaha is very stable.

“But I think we have another strong point and we need to work there.”

Vinales feels as strong as in early 2017

Having struggled badly at the previous round at the low-grip Barcelona, ​​Vinales said he was relieved to rediscover the feeling that took him to race victories in Qatar and Argentina during practice at Assen.

“You can see [that it is different to Barcelona],” said Vinales. “This morning I already felt good on the bike, I did many laps on the soft tire and had a good potential.

“Tomorrow still we have work to do on the tires but this afternoon we tried all the rear tires and also the two soft fronts just to compare and I was feeling good with nearly everything, so it’s quite strange.

“The bike is working as always, I feel as strong as I felt in the first races, really nice to feel again like that.”

Vinales had been trying a new frame, which he previously sampled post-race at Barcelona, ​​in practice, although the Spaniard said both variants of the M1 he had at his disposal were working well.

“We are trying many things here, things that we recovered from the Barcelona test,” he added. “But anyway as I said with this grip both bikes are strong so normally when we have grip I feel as strong as always.”

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont