**”Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle in ‘Embarrassing’ MotoGP Race”**

Disastrous Aprilia Weekend, Shameful Aragon MotoGP Performance

Aleix Espargaro ends up a humiliating 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez, while Maverick Vinales withdraws halfway through the race.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales wrapped up Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon with times that were surpassed only by Marc Marquez.

Nonetheless, the heavy rain that fell overnight on both Friday and Saturday caused them significant difficulties.

At first, it seemed unusual that Espargaro was 2.9 seconds and Vinales was 3.7 seconds slower than Marquez's pole position time during the qualifying session.

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

Espargaro couldn't make it past the first turn, as he experienced wheelspin on the dirty side of the grid and then collided with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio.

In his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to cross the finish line on Sunday, but he was a disappointing 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, finishing in tenth place.

"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 remarked. "Once more, I struggled to remain on the bike, but we managed a top ten finish, so we did earn some points."

Espargaro admitted that they struggled with the tyres. He said he concentrated more on not crashing rather than on his performance. It was so challenging that he could barely get his knee to touch the ground.

"I wasn't able to lean into the turns while riding the bike. This was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, and it's tough to come to terms with. We have to understand what went wrong."

The situation was dire for Vinales, who instantly fell to the rear of the pack on the first lap of Sunday’s race. He stayed in that position, only ahead of Luca Marini who began from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race shortly before the halfway mark.

The fastest lap achieved by the winner at the Circuit of the Americas was 2.7 seconds slower than Marquez's best lap.

"We struggled to get the tires to perform properly. It felt like I was on the verge of crashing at every corner, particularly with the back tire," Vinales mentioned.

"The weekend turned out to be challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything suddenly fell apart."

The challenge of getting the tyres to perform well on a difficult track – Marquez's race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's time from two years ago – appeared to mirror past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tyres 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 our momentum and ended up roughly four seconds slower than our best times."

"We must use this poor performance as motivation to push forward with our analysis and development efforts as we prepare for future 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, while his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th place due to a penalty for tire pressure.

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

"I couldn’t get any traction; it felt like I was on ice the entire race, leading to numerous errors."

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

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

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