Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Endure ‘Embarrassing’ MotoGP Weekend

Disastrous Weekend for Aprilia, Disappointing Performance at Aragon MotoGP

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

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales ended Friday's MotoGP practice session in Aragon with only Marc Marquez ahead of them in the timings.

Nonetheless, the rainfall during the nights of both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

At first, Espargaro and Vinales being 2.9 and 3.7 seconds slower than Marquez’s pole position time in qualifying seemed like an anomaly.

However, this shortfall was evident during the Sprint race, with Vinales ending up in 19th place, which was the last position, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, averaging a gap of 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, didn't make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin due to being on the dusty side of the grid and then made contact with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

Participating in his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish the race on Sunday but ended up in tenth place, trailing Marquez by an "embarrassing" 40.6 seconds.

“I put in my maximum effort, but unfortunately, nothing seemed effective and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating,” Espargaro remarked. “Once again, I struggled to maintain control of the bike, but at least we secured a top ten finish and earned some points.”

Espargaro acknowledged that they faced challenges with the tires. He mentioned that his main concern was preventing a crash rather than optimizing performance. He also noted that it was hard to get his knee to touch the ground.

“I couldn’t even tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, which is difficult to come to terms with. We have to understand what went wrong.”

The situation was even more dire for Vinales, who fell to the very last position at the start of Sunday's race. He stayed there, except for Luca Marini who began from the pit lane, until he withdrew shortly before reaching the halfway point of the race.

The top lap time of the COTA champion was 2.7 seconds behind that of Marquez.

"We struggled with the tyres. It felt like I was about to crash at every corner, particularly because of the rear tyre," Vinales explained.

"The weekend was challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything seemed to fall apart afterward."

The struggle to get the tires to perform on a challenging track – with Marquez finishing 12 seconds behind Enea Bastianini's winning time from two years prior – mirrored past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tires on wet surfaces. "It was a terrible weekend," stated team leader Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite having little grip, but then we lost our momentum, ending up roughly four seconds slower than our best times."

"Our poor performance should drive us to keep analyzing and improving as we prepare for the next races, beginning with Misano."

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

"Today was extremely challenging," Fernandez remarked. "I'm not entirely sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed three laps with relatively decent grip before experiencing significant tyre graining. However, today, I had no grip at all."

"I couldn't get a good grip and it felt like I was racing on ice the entire time, which led to numerous errors on my part."

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

Another positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano event this weekend, taking place on their home turf, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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