Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle as Marquez Dominates in ‘Embarrassing’ MotoGP Weekend

Aprilia had a disastrous weekend, with Aleix Espargaro finishing a humiliating 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez and Maverick Vinales dropping out halfway through the Aragon MotoGP race.

During Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon, Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales secured positions on the timesheets just behind Marc Marquez.

Nonetheless, the heavy rain that fell overnight on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

At first, it seemed extraordinary that Espargaro and Vinales were trailing Marquez's pole position time by a staggering 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds, respectively, in the qualifying round.

However, the gap was evident during the Sprint race as Vinales ended up in 19th place, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which translates to a difference of 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin on the less favorable side of the grid and ended up colliding with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

In his final Aragon race prior to retirement, Espargaro managed to finish but lagged an “embarrassing” 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 said. "Once more, I struggled to remain on the bike, but we managed to secure a top-ten finish, so at least we earned some points."

Espargaro admitted that they struggled with the tires. He explained that he concentrated more on preventing a crash than on optimizing his performance. He even found it challenging to touch his knee to the ground.

“I wasn’t able to lean into the corners with the bike. It was an unusual and difficult circumstance for us to come to terms with. We need to determine what went wrong.”

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

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

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

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

The challenge of getting the tires to perform on a difficult track – Marquez's race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – appeared to mirror past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tires on wet surfaces. "A terrible weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite low grip, but then we lost our momentum and ended up around four seconds off our best times."

“This poor performance should inspire us to keep analyzing and improving as we prepare for the upcoming races, beginning with Misano.”

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

"Today was incredibly challenging," remarked Fernandez. "I'm not sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed to complete three laps with decent traction, though I did notice some tyre graining. However, today was a different story; I couldn't get any grip at all."

"I had no traction and it felt like I was racing on ice the entire time, which led to many 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 challenges. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate to find a solution."

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

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