Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales says a disastrous run for him and team-mate Aleix Espargaro in MotoGP’s British Grand Prix “woke up people” at the Italian marque.
The Silverstone weekend highlighted Aprilia’s struggles in race trim as Vinales dropped from eighth to 13th at the finish with heavy tyre degradation and Espargaro likewise slumped to sixth behind a quintet of Ducatis after starting from pole.
The result was particularly a disappointment for Aprilia as the 5.9km circuit usually plays into the strengths of the RS-GP, with Espargaro famously winning last year’s race despite stern opposition from Ducati.
The Noale factory has had a little under two weeks to analyse what went wrong in Britain this year and try to understand why it is struggling to replicate its early season form.
Vinales claims that Aprilia remains a potent challenger in qualifying and sprint on softer tyres, as vindicated by Espargaro’s pole at Silverstone, but its pace in grands prix is now becoming a serious cause for worry.
“Obviously Silverstone started some alarms because it is a track where usually we should be on the podium,” said the Spaniard.
“So being that [far] at the back and with a lot of problems takes you a bit under consideration if you are approaching the weekend in a correct way or treating the tyres in the correct way.
“It seems the bike is very different to last year, and somehow in the beginning of this season, I don't know if because of the tarmac or however, it was much easier to take out the maximum performance in the race.
“Now it seems complicated because in quali we are very fast, in sprint race we defend ourselves, but on Sunday it's hard to be competitive.
“So we need to understand why, because in the first few races we have been very competitive on the Sunday of the weekend.”
Aprilia remains the only manufacturer to beat Ducati in 2024 after the opening 10 rounds of the season, courtesy of Vinales’ success in the US Grand Prix back in April.
Since then the Borgo Panigale marque has pulled away from the opposition, particularly with the latest-specification GP24, leaving even podiums as an unlikely outcome for rivals.
Vinales hopes this weekend’s Austrian GP will start to provide some answers about its loss in form and help the factory return to the front later in the year.
“From my point of view, especially from my side, I become less competitive because I was able to win races [previously], even though they were [against] the Ducati '24,” said Vinales, who also won the sprint race prior to his double triumph in Austin.
“For sure, Silverstone woke up a little bit the people because it was a race where we should be in a really good position and it was one of the worst weekends of the season so far, so we need to understand.
“I think Austria is a good track to start to understand. Everyone is working, is positive and we will try to be back where we started the season.”
Michelin has introduced a new tyre specification in MotoGP this year, which has been key to riders breaking lap records at a wide variety of circuits, with Aprilia also able to benefit from the new rubber.
But while the GP24 is able to extract more and more pace out of the new rear tyre with every round, the RS-GP has struggled in this regard - contributing to its decline in performance.
Espargaro said that even though Aprilia has made a massive step forward compared to last year, he is baffled that he wasn’t able to convert pole positions into strong results at both Barcelona and Silverstone.
“This is why we are a little bit in shock, because we don't understand why [we drop so far behind Ducatis],” he said.
“We are fast, the bike is competitive, but we don't understand why we can't match at races like Barcelona and Silverstone where I felt I was strongest [but] I arrived with 10 seconds in the race. It's difficult really to understand.
“I was very very strong, very fast in terms of speed but the maximum we could reach was sixth. And I was a lot faster in the race than the rest of the Aprilias, the KTMs, the Yamahas, the Hondas, but we were very far [from the front].
He added: “I don't think there is just one thing [that is making the difference], but they stop the bike better than us and they are able to do the pick up without destroying the tyre.
“We have to ride a little bit more with the throttle, which is good in terms of pure speed on pole position with the soft tyre, but with tyre consumption it's not the best. We are seeing on race day it's difficult to match.”
Additional reporting by German Garcia Casanova and Gerald Dirnbeck
