Aprilia’s Aragon Agony: Espargaro’s ‘Embarrassing’ Finish, Vinales’ Mid-Race Exit Highlight ‘Horrible’ Weekend

Disastrous Aprilia weekend, shameful Aragon MotoGP event

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

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

Nonetheless, the muddy conditions caused by overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

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

However, this gap was evident in the Sprint race, with Vinales ending up in 19th place, the last 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 turn. He experienced wheelspin due to being on the less clean side of the grid and ended up hitting 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 found himself in a "humiliating" tenth place, trailing Marquez by 40.6 seconds.

"I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to be effective, and we ended up more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is really humiliating," Espargaro commented. "Once more, I struggled to remain on the bike, but we managed to secure a top ten finish and earn some points."

Espargaro explained that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. He said his main concern was preventing crashes rather than achieving good performance, and it was challenging for him to even get his knee down.

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

Vinales faced even more difficulties, falling to the rear of the pack on the first lap of Sunday’s race. He stayed in that position, except for overtaking Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race shortly before reaching the halfway mark.

The fastest lap of the winner at COTA 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, particularly because of the rear tire," Vinales remarked.

"It turned out to be a challenging weekend for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything seemed to fall apart afterward."

The struggle to get the tires to perform well on a challenging track – Marquez’s race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – appeared to echo past problems Aprilia has faced when using slick tires on wet surfaces. "A terrible weekend," stated team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite limited grip, but we then lost our direction and ended up around four seconds slower than our top times."

"This poor result should drive us to keep analyzing and improving as we prepare for the next races, beginning with Misano."

Trackhouse racer Miguel Oliveira, who secured fifth place in the Sprint, faced an early exit after crashing on the first lap of the grand prix. Meanwhile, his teammate Raul Fernandez ended up in 16th position due to a penalty for tyre pressure.

“It was a really tough day,” Fernandez commented. “I’m not quite sure what went wrong. The day before, I managed three laps with decent traction, but then the tires started to wear out significantly. However, today, I didn’t have any grip at all.”

"I had no traction throughout the race, it felt like I was driving on ice, which led to numerous errors."

"It was among the toughest races I've ever experienced… The silver lining is that all of us on the Aprilia team are encountering similar problems. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate to figure out a solution."

The additional positive development for Aprilia is that the upcoming Misano race this weekend, being their home event, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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