Maverick Vinales Reveals Unusual Problem With Aprilia's MotoGP Bike

Saajan Jogia | 14 Hours Ago

Apr 14, 2024; Austin, TX, USA; Maverick Vinales (12) of Spain and Aprilia Racing rides in warmups before the start of the MotoGP Grand Prix of The Americas at Circuit of The Americas. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Maverick Vinales revealed an unusual problem he faced during his time with Aprilia, noting the RS-GP’s tendency to struggle in the second half of each MotoGP season. He admitted that the team "changed everything" on the bike but could not identify the root cause of the problem. Despite this, the Spaniard achieved his first and only Grand Prix victory with the team at the 2024 Americas GP, following a strong showing in the Qatar season-opener.

Vinales, who joined Aprilia in 2021 after parting ways with Yamaha and is set to join KTM's Tech3 team in 2025, admitted that neither he nor the team fully understood why the bike performed so well during the first half of the season. He acknowledged that while there were moments he felt at his best on the RS-GP, its performance consistently declined as the season progressed.

The 2024 season saw the Aprilia deliver strong results in the first 10 races, securing three sprint wins and a grand prix victory. In the next 10 races, the team managed only two sprint race podium finishes. Vinales has an explanation for the anomaly, stating that Aprilia started each season with the RS-GP already performing at its peak performance. In contrast, rival teams improved their bikes progressively throughout the year and surpassed Aprilia's pace by the second half, which made it seem like the bike had lost performance. Speaking about the unusual occurrence, Vinales said:

“I had a few races where I had a great feeling

“Le Mans ’23, just I crashed. But I think that race could be another win, for sure. And some others where the feeling was really good.

“The bike showed great potential in some parts of the championship, but something I feel that was repetitive in my years in Aprilia was the second part of the season was very difficult for all the Aprilias.

“So, difficult to understand because the tracks are normally good for us. But when you arrive into the second part of the championship, it was always difficult.”

Vinales added that the team had tried swapping all major parts to find answers, before presenting his theory about what might have happened. He said:

“I don’t know, because we tried everything.

“We changed swingarms, chassis, everything to try to understand what was going on.

“But maybe the idea that I have is that we started at the maximum and the others were a little bit struggling with the new bike and then they made the next step.”