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

Disastrous Aprilia Weekend, Humiliating Aragon MotoGP Race

Aleix Espargaro ends up 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez in an 'embarrassing' performance, while Maverick Vinales pulls out halfway through the race.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales completed Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon, placing just behind Marc Marquez on the leaderboard.

Nonetheless, overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday nights left them struggling.

Initially, it seemed unusual that Espargaro and Vinales were trailing Marquez's pole time by a significant 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds, respectively, during qualifying.

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, averaging 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin on the grid's dirty side and then collided with Fabio di Giannantonio's rear.

In his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish on Sunday, but he was an "embarrassing" 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, placing tenth.

Espargaro expressed his frustration, saying, "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. Once more, I struggled to remain on the bike, but at least we secured a top ten finish and earned some points."

Espargaro admitted that they struggled to get the tires to function properly. He emphasized that his main concern was preventing a crash rather than focusing on speed or performance. He added that it was challenging to even get his knee to touch the ground.

"I couldn't lean into the bike's turns at all. It was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, which is difficult to come to terms with. We need to investigate and understand what went wrong."

The situation was even more challenging for Vinales, who immediately fell to the last position during the first lap of Sunday’s race. He stayed there, with the exception of Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race just before reaching the halfway point.

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

“We struggled to get the tyres to function properly. It felt like I was on the verge of crashing at every corner, particularly due to the rear tyre,” Vinales explained.

"It was a challenging weekend for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, the situation took a turn for the worse."

The challenge of getting the tires to perform on a difficult track – with Marquez's race time being 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years ago – seemed to echo past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tires on wet surfaces. "A terrible weekend," said team boss Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite having little grip, but then we lost our direction, finishing about four seconds off our best times."

"We need to use this poor performance as motivation 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, fell during the first lap of the grand prix. His teammate, Raul Fernandez, ended up in 16th place due to a penalty for incorrect tyre pressure.

“Today was incredibly challenging,” Fernandez remarked. “I can’t quite grasp what occurred. Yesterday, I managed to complete three laps with decent traction, but then the tires started to develop a lot of graining. However, today, I had no grip at all.”

"I had no traction and felt like I was on ice throughout the entire race, which caused me to make numerous errors."

"The race was incredibly challenging for me… The silver lining is that everyone on the Aprilia team is experiencing similar problems. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate to find a solution together."

Another positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming home race at Misano this weekend is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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