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

Disastrous Weekend for Aprilia, Embarrassing Performance at Aragon MotoGP

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

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales concluded Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon with only Marc Marquez ahead of them in the standings.

Overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

Initially, it seemed unusual that Espargaro and Vinales were a massive 2.9 and 3.7 seconds slower than Marquez's pole position time in qualifying.

However, the gap was evident in the Sprint race, with Vinales ending up in the 19th and final position, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which averages to 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past the first corner. He experienced wheelspin on the less clean side of the starting grid, which led to him colliding with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

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

“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 commented. “Once more, I struggled to keep control of the bike, but at least we finished in the top ten and earned some points.”

Espargaro admitted that they couldn't make the tires function properly. He emphasized that he was more concerned with preventing a crash than with optimizing performance, and it was challenging just to get his knee to touch the ground.

"I wasn't able to navigate turns with the bike. It was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us that is difficult to come to terms with. We need to understand what went wrong."

The situation was more dire for Vinales, who fell to the last position right at the start of Sunday's race. He stayed there, ahead of only Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he retired shortly before the halfway mark of the race.

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

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

"The weekend turned out to be challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Following a strong showing on Friday, everything suddenly stopped going our way."

The challenge of getting the tyres to perform well on a difficult track – evidenced by Marquez's race time being 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – seemed to mirror past Aprilia struggles when using slick tyres in wet conditions. "It was a terrible weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "We were quick on Friday with limited grip, but then lost direction, finishing around four seconds slower than our top times."

"This poor showing should inspire us to persist in our evaluation and improvement efforts for the upcoming races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse's Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, faced a crash on the first lap of the grand prix, while his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th place due to a penalty related to tyre pressure.

"Today was incredibly challenging," Fernandez remarked. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong. The day before, I had three laps with relatively decent traction, but then I experienced significant tyre graining. However, today, I had no grip at all."

"I couldn't get any traction and it felt like I was racing on ice the entire time, which led to numerous errors."

"That race was among the toughest I've ever experienced… The good thing is that all of us at Aprilia are encountering similar problems. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate effectively to find a solution."

In other positive news for Aprilia, the upcoming Misano round this weekend, taking place on their home turf, is expected to provide significantly better grip.

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