**”Aprilia Endures Nightmare Weekend at Aragon: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle in ‘Embarrassing’ MotoGP Race”**

Disastrous weekend for Aprilia, humiliating performance at Aragon MotoGP

Aleix Espargaro ends up trailing Marc Marquez by a staggering 40 seconds, while Maverick Vinales withdraws halfway through the race.

On Friday during MotoGP practice at Aragon, Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales were the only riders trailing behind Marc Marquez on the timing charts.

Overnight rainfall on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

In qualifying, Espargaro and Vinales were initially a staggering 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds slower than Marquez’s pole time, which seemed like an unusual event.

However, the gap was evident in the Sprint race, as Vinales ended up in 19th place, which was last, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, averaging 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin on the dirty side of the starting grid, which caused him to collide with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

Participating in his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish on Sunday but was a disappointing 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, ending up in tenth position.

"I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to go right, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating," Espargaro commented. "Once more, I nearly couldn't remain on the bike, but we did manage a top ten finish, so we earned some points."

Espargaro acknowledged their difficulty with the tyres, saying, “We couldn't make the tyres function properly. My main concern was preventing a crash rather than improving performance. It was so challenging that I struggled to get my knee down.”

"I was unable to tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and unfamiliar scenario for us, making it difficult to come to terms with. We have to understand what went wrong."

Vinales faced an even tougher situation as he fell to the very back of the pack right from the first lap on Sunday. He stayed there, only ahead of Luca Marini who had started from the pit lane, until he eventually pulled out of the race just before reaching the halfway point.

The fastest lap of the winner at COTA was 2.7 seconds slower than Marquez's quickest time.

Vinales commented that they struggled with the tyre performance, feeling on the verge of crashing at every corner, particularly due to issues with the rear tyre.

"Aprilia and I faced a challenging weekend, as our progress halted after a strong showing on Friday."

Struggling to get the tires to perform on a challenging track surface – Marquez's race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years ago – appeared to echo past Aprilia issues when using slick tires in wet conditions. "It was a terrible weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite having little grip, but then we lost momentum and ended up around four seconds off our best times."

"This poor showing should drive us to keep analyzing and improving as we prepare for future races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse racer Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, unfortunately crashed on the first lap of the grand prix. His teammate, Raul Fernandez, ended up in 16th place following a penalty for tyre pressure.

"Today was extremely challenging," Fernandez remarked. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I completed three laps with decent traction, though I experienced some tyre graining afterward. However, today, there was no grip at all."

"I had no traction and it felt as if I was racing on ice the entire time, which led to numerous errors on my part."

"That race was among the toughest I've ever experienced… The silver lining is that all of us at Aprilia are encountering the same problems. With four riders providing input, we can collaborate to find a solution."

Another positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming home race at Misano this weekend is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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