“Horrible” Aprilia weekend, “embarrassing” Aragon MotoGP race

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales finished Friday's MotoGP practice at Aragon behind only Marc Marquez on the timesheets.

However dirty overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday night left them floundering.

A colossal 2.9s (Espargaro) and 3.7s (Vinales) behind Marquez’s pole time in qualifying initially looked like a freak occurrence.

But that deficit was confirmed in the Sprint race, where Vinales finished 19th and last, 37.6s behind Marquez (3.4s per lap).

Espargaro meanwhile didn’t get beyond Turn 1, having suffered from wheelspin on the dirty side of the grid before clipping the back of Fabio di Giannantonio.

Competing in his last Aragon round before retirement, Espargaro did at least reach the chequered flag on Sunday but was an “embarrassing” 40.6s behind Marquez, in tenth place.

“I tried my best but really nothing works and we finished more than 40-seconds from the victory which is embarrassing,” Espargaro said. “Again I almost couldn’t stay on the bike, but a top ten so we take some points.”

“We were unable to get the tyres working,” Espargaro confirmed. “I focused more on how to avoid crashing than on performance. It was even difficult to get my knee on the ground.

“I couldn’t even lean into turns with the bike. It was a strange and new situation for us which is hard to accept. We need to figure out what happened.”

Things were even worse for Vinales, who dropped straight to the back on Sunday's opening lap, where he remained (aside from pit lane starter Luca Marini) until retiring just before mid-race distance.

The COTA winner’s best lap was 2.7s slower than Marquez.

“We had difficulty getting the tyres to work. It seemed like I was going to crash on every turn, especially with the rear tyre,” Vinales said. 

“It was a complicated weekend for Aprilia and for me, because after the good performance on Friday, things just stopped working.”

The inability to make the tyres work on a tricky surface - Marquez’s winning race time was 12-seconds slower than Enea Bastianini's two years ago - seemed to replicate previous Aprilia difficulties when riding with slicks in damp conditions.
    
“A horrible weekend,” declared team principal Massimo Rivola. “Friday we were fast with minimal grip, but then we lost our way, ending up about four seconds slower than our best times.

“This bad performance must motivate us to continue our analysis and development work in view of the upcoming races, starting from Misano.”

Trackhouse rider Miguel Oliveira, fifth in the Sprint, crashed out on the opening lap of the grand prix, with team-mate Raul Fernandez 16th after a tyre pressure penalty.

“Today was super difficult,” Fernandez said. “I don’t really understand what happened. Yesterday, I had three laps with more or less good grip and then I had a lot of graining on the tyres. But today, I had nothing.

"I didn’t have any grip, I felt like I was riding on ice all race long and so I made a lot of mistakes.

“It was one of the most difficult races of my life… The only positive is that we all seem to face the same issues in Aprilia, we are four riders, giving four times the feedback and we can work united to find a direction.”

The other good news for Aprilia is that this weekend’s home Misano round should offer much more grip.