Aprilia’s Aragon Nightmare: Espargaro and Vinales Struggle in ‘Embarrassing’ MotoGP Race

Terrible weekend for Aprilia, embarrassing MotoGP race in Aragon

Aleix Espargaro ended up a shocking 40 seconds behind Marc Marquez, while Maverick Vinales withdrew halfway through the race.

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales concluded Friday's MotoGP practice session at Aragon, trailing just behind Marc Marquez on the leaderboard.

Nonetheless, the overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday left them struggling.

Initially, it seemed unusual that Espargaro was 2.9 seconds and Vinales was 3.7 seconds behind Marquez's pole position time during qualifying.

The gap was evident during the Sprint race as Vinales ended up in 19th place, which was last, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, averaging 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro, on the other hand, failed to make it past the first turn after experiencing wheelspin on the less clean side of the starting grid and then bumping into the back of Fabio di Giannantonio.

In his final Aragon race ahead of his retirement, Espargaro managed to finish on Sunday, though he was a "disappointing" 40.6 seconds behind Marquez, ending up in tenth place.

"I gave it my all, but nothing seemed to work, and we ended up finishing more than 40 seconds behind the winner, which is quite humiliating," Espargaro commented. "Once more, I struggled to remain on the bike, but at least we made it into the top ten and earned some points."

Espargaro acknowledged that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. He mentioned that his main concern was preventing crashes rather than focusing on speed. He also noted that it was challenging to get his knee to touch the ground.

"I couldn't tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and unfamiliar experience for us, and it's difficult to come to terms with. We have to understand what went wrong."

Vinales faced an even tougher situation, falling to the very back of the pack on the first lap of Sunday’s race. He stayed there, only ahead of Luca Marini who started from the pit lane, until he withdrew from the race just before reaching the halfway point.

The fastest lap of the COTA victor was 2.7 seconds behind Marquez's best time.

"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 explained.

"It was a challenging weekend for both Aprilia and myself. Despite a strong showing on Friday, everything fell apart afterwards."

Facing challenges with getting the tires to perform on a difficult track surface, Marc Marquez's race win was 12 seconds slower compared to Enea Bastianini’s time from two years prior. This issue seemed to mirror past problems Aprilia had experienced when using slick tires in wet conditions. "A terrible weekend," said team boss Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite low grip, but then we lost our direction, finishing roughly four seconds slower than our best times."

"We should use this poor performance as motivation to keep analyzing and improving as we prepare for the next races, starting with Misano."

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

"Today was extremely challenging," Fernandez commented. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong. Yesterday, I managed three laps with decent traction before experiencing significant tyre graining. But today, I had no grip at all."

"I had no traction and it felt like I was racing on ice the entire time, causing me to make numerous errors."

"That race was among the toughest I've ever experienced. The silver lining is that all of us on the Aprilia team are encountering similar challenges. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate and find a solution together."

Another piece of positive news for Aprilia is that the Misano circuit, hosting this weekend's home race, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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