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

Terrible weekend for Aprilia, embarrassing MotoGP race in Aragon

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

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales wrapped up Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon, placing just behind Marc Marquez in the rankings.

Overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday night left them struggling due to the muddy conditions.

In the qualifying session, Espargaro and Vinales were significantly slower than Marquez's pole time by 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds, respectively, which at first appeared to be an unusual event.

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

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

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

Espargaro commented, "I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to be effective, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating. Once more, I struggled to stay on the bike, yet we managed a top ten finish and earned some points."

Espargaro acknowledged that they couldn’t get the tires to function properly. He mentioned that his main concern was preventing crashes rather than optimizing performance, and it was challenging for him to even get his knee to touch the ground.

"I wasn't able to lean the bike into the turns. It was an unusual and difficult scenario for us to come to terms with. We have to determine what went wrong."

The situation was even more dire for Vinales, who fell to the very last position during the first lap on Sunday. He stayed there until just before the halfway point of the race when he eventually retired, with the exception of Luca Marini, who had started from the pit lane.

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

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

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

The challenge of getting the tires to perform well on a difficult track – Marquez's race-winning time was 12 seconds behind Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – appeared to mirror past issues Aprilia has faced 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 our direction, finishing about four seconds slower than our best times."

"This poor showing should drive us to keep up our analysis and development efforts as we prepare for the next races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse racer Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, fell during the first lap of the grand prix. Meanwhile, his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th place after receiving a penalty for tyre pressure.

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

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

"It was among the toughest races I've ever experienced… The one silver lining is that everyone on the Aprilia team seems to be encountering the same problems. With four riders, we provide four sets of feedback, allowing us to collaborate and find a solution."

The other positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano event this weekend is expected to have significantly better traction.

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