When Spanish talent Maverick Vinales signed for Team Suzuki Ecstar ahead of a the 2015 season upon the Japanese factory’s return to the sport, there was little doubt that he’d make an impact sooner or later in MotoGP’s premier class.

Browsing back through the history-books, Vinales had been a strong performer in every season of his grand prix career. In 2011 he was third in 125GP, 2012 he finished third in Moto3 and by 2013 he won his first and only world title so far in Moto3.

The following year for 2014, Vinales stepped up to Moto2 for a single season and claimed third in the standings. He won his first race second time out and four in total during the year, spring-boarding him to Suzuki’s MotoGP squad for 2015-2016. His first test came at Valencia, where he adapted swiftly to the GSX-RR.

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“It was an amazing experience and I really enjoyed today,” Vinales said at the end of 2014 in Valencia. “It wasn’t easy to get used to the power and speed for me in the beginning, so I paid a lot of attention and concentrated at the start of the session and tried to adapt little by little.

“The chassis is quite compact and that fitted me very well – I could brake as hard as in Moto2, but I’ve only opened full-gas in the middle of the straight so far. I’m also not using the electronic control either, apart from the traction control, so there is still a lot to do.

“The bike leans and corners easily, even though I’ve not had to change my riding style so much – I’m really feel comfortable without modifying anything. I hope the power delivery will be improved more for me as we continue our testing, but I also need to learn lots more myself and improve my riding as well.”

Upon debut at Qatar he finished in 14th place for two points and valuable experience, however some early gremlins with the Suzuki did affect his progress. Still, race distance was the priority and it was a positive way to open his MotoGP career.

“It’s been an amazing experience!” Vinales said. “Racing with the top riders in MotoGP is something unbelievable and I’m so happy with the experience. The race has been strange, soon after the start I had some issues with the electronics and I lost some traction control, so I had to rely only on my wrist.

“But the machine was performing well so I decided to keep on and finally I ended the race and got two points. This was our priority, so I’m satisfied. We know where we need to improve and also what went wrong with this race, so we can work on it and hopefully be even more effective in the next race.”

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By the end of the championship Vinales scored 12th in the points, managed to make the finish of all races bar two and raced to best results of sixth at both Catalunya and Phillip Island. He was directly behind more experienced teammate Aleix Espargaro in the series.

“We were expecting something more, but we have learnt a lot,” he recalled at year’s end. “The season has been positive and without the two crashes I had, we could have placed in the top 10, so we are positive for the next year. Now we need to focus on the next season, we already know the main weakness points and we have much more information from this year.”

Come 2016 he matched that sixth-place result in Qatar’s opener, improved that to fourth by round three at Circuit of the Americas and took his first podium come Le Mans’ fifth round. At Silverstone he broke through for a first-career victory – the first for Suzuki since 2007 – and eventually claimed fourth in the final standings.

“At the end my feelings are for these two years with Suzuki, we did a very good job, if I think all the struggles we had last year and now we’ve been fighting for podiums consistently in the last part of the season,” Vinales reflected. “It’s a good sensation and also I’m leaving here some people with which we created a very good connection. I’m proud of the job we’ve done together.”

The result from all that was a two-year factory Movistar Yamaha deal alongside Valentino Rossi for 2017 and 2018. First time out at the post-season Valencia test he topped the timesheets on both days, setting himself up as a true title-challenger in the premier class.