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

Disastrous Aprilia Weekend, Humiliating Aragon MotoGP Race

Aleix Espargaro trails Marc Marquez by a disheartening 40 seconds, while Maverick Vinales withdraws halfway through.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales ended Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon with only Marc Marquez posting faster times.

Overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

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

However, this gap was evident during the Sprint race, where Vinales ended up in 19th place and was the last to cross the finish line, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which averages to 3.4 seconds per lap

Espargaro's race ended early at Turn 1 due to wheelspin from starting on the grid's dirty side, which caused him to collide with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

In his final appearance at the Aragon circuit before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish the race on Sunday, though he was a disappointing 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, placing him in tenth.

"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 commented. "Once more, I barely managed to stay on the bike, but at least we finished in the top ten and earned some points."

Espargaro stated that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. He mentioned that he concentrated more on preventing a crash rather than on the bike's performance. He added that it was challenging to even get his knee to touch the ground.

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

The situation was even more dire for Vinales, who immediately fell to the rear of the pack during the first lap on Sunday. He stayed there, only ahead of Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race just before the halfway point.

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

"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.

"Aprilia and I faced a challenging weekend. Despite performing well on Friday, everything fell apart afterward."

The challenge of getting the tires to perform on a difficult track surface was evident, with Marquez’s winning race time being 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior. This issue seemed to mirror past problems Aprilia has faced when using slick tires on wet tracks. "A dreadful weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite low grip, but then we lost our direction and ended up roughly four seconds off our best times."

"We should use this poor performance as motivation to keep working on our analysis and development ahead of the next races, beginning with Misano."

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

"Today was incredibly tough," Fernandez stated. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed three laps with reasonably good traction before experiencing significant tire graining. However, today, I had no grip at all."

"I struggled with traction and it felt like I was racing on ice the entire time, which led to numerous errors on my part."

"It was among the toughest races I’ve ever experienced… The one good thing is that all of us in Aprilia are dealing with the same problems. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate to find a solution."

Another positive development for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano round, which takes place on their home turf this weekend, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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