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

Disastrous Weekend for Aprilia, Nightmare Race at Aragon MotoGP

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

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

Nonetheless, the heavy rain that occurred overnight on both Friday and Saturday caused them to struggle.

Initially, the significant gaps of 2.9 seconds for Espargaro and 3.7 seconds for Vinales behind Marquez's pole position time during qualifying seemed like an unusual event.

However, the shortfall was evident in the Sprint race as Vinales ended up in 19th place, the very last position, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which equates to 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, failed to make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin due to being on the dirty side of the grid and subsequently made contact with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

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

Espargaro expressed his disappointment, stating, "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 embarrassing. Once again, I struggled to even remain on the bike, but at least we managed to secure a top-ten finish and earn some points."

Espargaro admitted that they struggled to get the tires to function properly. He prioritized preventing crashes over optimizing performance and mentioned that it was challenging to even get his knee to touch the ground.

“I was unable to tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, making it difficult to come to terms with. We need to investigate what caused this issue.”

Maverick Vinales faced even more difficulties, as he fell to the last position at the start of Sunday’s race. He stayed there, only ahead of Luca Marini who began from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race shortly before reaching the halfway mark.

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

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

"The weekend turned out to be tough for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything seemed to fall apart afterwards."

Struggling to get the tyres to perform on a challenging track surface led to a race time for Marquez that was 12 seconds slower compared to Enea Bastianini's performance two years prior. This issue echoed earlier struggles faced by Aprilia when using slick tyres in wet conditions. "It was a terrible weekend," stated team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite low grip, but later we lost our direction, finishing roughly four seconds off our best times."

"We should use this poor performance as motivation to keep analyzing and improving our work 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 related to tyre pressure.

"Today was very challenging," Fernandez mentioned. "I can't quite figure out what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed to complete three laps with decent traction, but then the tires started to degrade significantly. However, today, I had no grip at all."

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

"This 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 challenges. With four riders sharing their feedback, we can collaborate and find a way forward together."

Another piece of good news for Aprilia is that the upcoming home race at Misano this weekend is likely to provide significantly better traction.

Discover More

Recent Updates

Recent Updates

Site Map

Crash.Net

©1999-2024 Crash Media Group

You are not allowed to reproduce any part of this text, photographs, or illustrations, whether in full or in part, in any manner