Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle Amid ‘Embarrassing’ Race Performance

Disastrous Aprilia Weekend, Disappointing Aragon MotoGP Performance

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

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales concluded Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon with times that ranked them just behind Marc Marquez.

Despite the rain that fell overnight on both Friday and Saturday, leaving muddy conditions, they struggled significantly.

During qualifying, Espargaro and Vinales were significantly slower than Marquez, trailing by 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds respectively, which at first appeared to be an unusual event.

The gap was evident during the Sprint race, with Vinales coming in 19th and last, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which breaks down to 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro failed to make it past the first turn after experiencing wheelspin on the less clean side of the starting grid and subsequently colliding with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio.

In his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish but was a "humiliating" 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, placing tenth.

"I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to work, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating," Espargaro stated. "Once again, I struggled to stay on the bike, but at least we secured a top-ten finish and earned some points."

Espargaro admitted that they struggled to make the tires function properly. He mentioned that he was more concerned with preventing a crash than with optimizing his performance, and even found it challenging to get his knee to touch the ground.

"I wasn't able to tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and challenging experience for us to come to terms with. We have to determine what went wrong."

Vinales faced an even tougher situation, falling to the very back of the pack right from the first lap on Sunday. He stayed there, except for being ahead of Luca Marini, who started from the pit lane, until he retired shortly before reaching the halfway point of the race.

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

"We struggled to make the tyres function properly. It felt like I was on the verge of crashing at each corner, particularly with the rear tyre," Vinales stated.

"The weekend turned out to be challenging for both Aprilia and me. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything seemed to fall apart afterward."

Struggling to get the tyres to perform on a challenging track surface, Marquez’s race-winning time was 12 seconds slower compared to Enea Bastianini's performance two years ago. This issue seemed to echo Aprilia's past struggles with slick tyres on wet tracks. "It was a terrible weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick even with low grip, but then we lost our direction and ended up being around four seconds off our best times."

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

Trackhouse competitor Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, had an accident on the first lap of the grand prix, while his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th place due to a penalty for tyre pressure.

“Today was incredibly challenging,” stated Fernandez. “I’m not entirely sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed three laps with decent traction, but then I experienced significant tyre graining. However, today, I had no grip at all.”

"I struggled with traction throughout the race, feeling as if I were racing on ice, which led to numerous errors on my part."

"That race was among the toughest I've ever experienced. The upside is that all of us on the Aprilia team are dealing with similar challenges. With four riders contributing their feedback, we can collaborate to figure out a way forward."

Another positive note for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano round, taking place this weekend, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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