Aprilia’s Nightmare Weekend at Aragon: Espargaro’s Embarrassing Finish and Vinales’ Mid-Race Retirement

Disastrous Aprilia Weekend, Shameful Aragon MotoGP Race

Aleix Espargaro trails 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 posting faster times.

Nevertheless, the rainfall during the nights of both Friday and Saturday created muddy conditions, leaving them struggling.

Espargaro and Vinales were initially 2.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds slower than Marquez’s pole position time in qualifying, which seemed like an odd anomaly.

However, this gap was evident during the Sprint race, as Vinales ended up in the 19th position, trailing Marquez by 37.6 seconds, averaging a loss of 3.4 seconds per lap.

Espargaro couldn't make it past the first turn as he experienced wheelspin on the dusty side of the starting grid and ended up hitting the rear of Fabio di Giannantonio.

In his final Aragon race before retiring, Espargaro managed to finish but ended up in tenth place, trailing Marquez by an "embarrassing" 40.6 seconds.

“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 we managed a top ten finish, so we did get some points.”

Espargaro acknowledged that they couldn't get the tires to function properly. He emphasized that his main concern was to prevent crashing rather than focusing on performance. He added that it was challenging to even get his knee to touch the ground.

"I couldn't even tilt the bike during turns. It was an unusual and unfamiliar circumstance 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, who fell 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 retired from the race just before reaching the halfway point.

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

"We struggled to make the tyres function properly. I felt like I was about to lose control on every corner, particularly with the rear tyre," Vinales explained.

"The weekend proved challenging for both Aprilia and myself. Despite strong results on Friday, everything seemed to fall apart afterward."

The challenge of getting the tyres to perform on a difficult track – Marquez’s race-winning time was 12 seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's from two years prior – appeared to mirror Aprilia's past struggles when using slick tyres in wet conditions. "A terrible weekend," said team principal Massimo Rivola. "On Friday, we were quick despite low grip, but then we lost our direction, ending up roughly four seconds slower than our best times."

"This poor result should inspire us to keep analyzing and improving our performance for the future races, beginning with Misano."

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

“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 tire wear. However, today, I couldn’t get any grip at all.”

"I struggled with traction throughout the entire race, feeling as though I was driving on ice, which led to 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 the same challenges. With four riders providing feedback, we can collaborate and work together to find a solution.”

Another positive update for Aprilia is that the Misano circuit, which will host this weekend’s event, is expected to provide significantly better traction.

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