Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro and Vinales Suffer Embarrassing Setbacks Amid Tyre Woes

Disastrous Weekend for Aprilia, Embarrassing Performance at Aragon MotoGP

Aleix Espargaro ended the race 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez, calling it an "embarrassing" result, while Maverick Vinales had to retire halfway through the event.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales ended Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon with lap times that were second only to Marc Marquez.

Nevertheless, the muddy rain that fell overnight on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

Espargaro and Vinales were initially thought to have anomalously slow qualifying times, trailing Marquez's pole position by a staggering 2.9 and 3.7 seconds respectively.

However, the gap was evident in the Sprint race as Vinales concluded in 19th place, coming in last and trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, which equates to 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, couldn't make it past the first turn. He experienced wheelspin on the dirtier side of the starting grid and subsequently made contact with the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio's bike.

Participating in his final Aragon race prior to retiring, Espargaro managed to cross the finish line on Sunday, although he was a "humiliating" 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, placing tenth.

“I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to work, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite embarrassing,” Espargaro stated. “Once again, I nearly couldn’t stay on the bike, but at least we made it into the top ten and earned some points.”

Espargaro admitted that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. His main concern was preventing crashes rather than enhancing performance, and he even struggled to get his knee to touch the ground.

"I wasn't able to tilt the bike during turns. This was an unfamiliar and challenging scenario for us, and it's tough to come to terms with. We need to understand what went wrong."

The situation was dire for Vinales, who immediately fell to the back of the pack on the first lap of Sunday’s race. He stayed there, with the exception of pit lane starter Luca Marini, until he withdrew from the race just before the halfway mark.

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

"We struggled to get the tires to perform properly. It felt like I was on the verge of crashing at every corner, especially with the rear tire," Vinales stated.

"It was a challenging weekend 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 – with Marquez’s race time being 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's two years prior – appeared to echo past issues Aprilia has faced when using slick tyres on wet surfaces. "A dreadful weekend," stated team leader 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."

"This poor showing should drive us to persist with our analysis and improvement efforts as we prepare for the future races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse racer Miguel Oliveira, who finished fifth in the Sprint, was involved in a crash on the first lap of the grand prix. His teammate, Raul Fernandez, ended up in 16th place after receiving a penalty for tyre pressure.

“Today was incredibly challenging,” Fernandez remarked. “I can’t quite grasp what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed three laps with decent traction before experiencing significant tyre graining. However, today, I had no grip at all.”

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

“That race was among the toughest I’ve ever experienced… The silver lining is that all of us at Aprilia are encountering the same challenges; there are four of us, each providing feedback, which allows us to collaborate and determine a path forward.”

The positive update for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano event, which is on their home turf, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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