Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle with ‘Embarrassing’ Performance Amid Tire Woes

Disastrous Aprilia weekend, disappointing Aragon MotoGP race

Aleix Espargaro ends up trailing Marc Marquez by a staggering 40 seconds, while Maverick Vinales withdraws halfway through the race.

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

Nonetheless, the rainfall that occurred overnight on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

Initially, the substantial gaps of 2.9 seconds for Espargaro and 3.7 seconds for Vinales behind Marquez's pole position time in qualifying appeared to be an anomaly.

However, this gap was evident during the Sprint race, with Vinales ending in the 19th position, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which translates to 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro couldn't make it past the first turn, as he experienced wheelspin on the less clean side of the starting 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 on Sunday but ended up a disappointing 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, securing a tenth-place finish.

"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 stated. "Once more, I struggled to stay on the bike, but at least we secured a top ten finish and earned some points."

Espargaro acknowledged that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. He mentioned that his primary concern was preventing a crash rather than enhancing performance, and he even struggled to touch his knee to the ground.

"I wasn't able to tilt the bike during turns. This was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, which is difficult to come to terms with. We need to understand what went wrong."

The situation was even more dire for Vinales; he fell to the very last position during the first lap on Sunday and stayed there, except for Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he retired shortly before reaching the halfway point of the race.

The fastest lap of the COTA winner was 2.7 seconds slower than that of Marquez.

"We faced challenges with the tyres. It felt like I might crash on every corner, particularly because of the rear tyre," Vinales explained.

“The weekend proved challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything suddenly went awry.”

The difficulty in getting the tires to perform on a challenging track surface resulted in a slower race time for Marquez, finishing 12 seconds behind Enea Bastianini's time from two years prior. This issue appeared to mirror earlier struggles that Aprilia experienced when using slick tires on wet tracks. Team principal Massimo Rivola described the situation as "a horrible weekend," noting that while they were quick on Friday with little grip, they eventually lost their pace, becoming around four seconds slower than their best times.

"We need to use this poor performance as a driving force to intensify our analysis and development efforts ahead of 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 main race. His teammate, Raul Fernandez, ended up in 16th place due to a penalty for tyre pressure.

Fernandez described today as extremely challenging. He expressed confusion about the situation, noting that while he had three reasonably good laps with decent grip yesterday, he experienced severe tire graining afterward. However, today, he found himself with no grip at all.

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

"That race was among the hardest I've ever experienced. The silver lining is that all of us in the Aprilia team are encountering the same challenges. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate effectively to determine the best course of action."

Another positive development for Aprilia is that the Misano round this weekend, being a home event, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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