Maverick Vinales collected 49 world championship points at the MotoGP race weekends in Portimao and Austin, taking two sprint victories and one Grand Prix triumph. Only the world championship leader Jorge Martin (52 points) was somewhat more successful during this period, but without a technical failure in second place on the last lap of the Portugal GP, he would not have been able to keep up with the Aprilia rider. With only 24 points behind in the drivers’ world championship, a title fight seemed absolutely possible at this point, but just four race weekends later, there is no sign of that.
While Francesco Bagnaia, Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin collected a total of 103, 100 and 91 world championship points during the MotoGP trips to Jerez, Le Mans, Barcelona and most recently Mugello, Vinales only managed a meager haul of 44 points – five points less in twice the number of race weekends compared to Portimao and Austin. How can this drastic drop in performance of the Spaniard, who was so dominant in the USA, be explained?
Aprilia’s MotoGP progress in 2024 not big enough: Ducati also improves
The simple answer: the competition – namely Ducati – has simply made greater progress than Aprilia since its trip to the United States. “When we came back to Europe, the others – especially Ducati – obviously made a bigger leap than us. It looks as if even with a really good race I can only finish eighth at the moment,” Vinales himself acknowledged, adding: “It was the same in Le Mans. I drove a strong race there too and finished fifth… So we have to take another step forward ourselves.”
The bitter side: Compared to last year, Aprilia has actually made a really remarkable progress with the new RS-GP. The Italians made the biggest leap forward in terms of race time of all five manufacturers. “I’ve improved by 35 seconds here compared to last year’s race,” said Vinales after the Italian GP in Mugello. The changes made to the bike over the winter are having an effect after some initial difficulties. The problem: Ducati also improved by 25 seconds in Mugello. In a direct comparison between the two manufacturers, Noale only gained just under ten seconds over the winter and therefore only finished in eighth place.
However, one question remains unanswered, as Aprilia was already on a par with Ducati at the beginning of the year and was not as far behind in Qatar, Portimao and Austin as it was recently in Jerez, Barcelona or Mugello. Why is that? The answer lies in two points. Firstly, Ducati has recently been able to get the chattering problems that had bothered them at the start of the year under control. Since Jerez, there have been hardly any complaints from the Ducati riders in this area. If the vibrations are really a thing of the past, it has certainly saved them a tenth or two in lap time.
Tire-eater RS-GP: Aprilia takes soft tires too hard
So Aprilia still lacks some understanding of the new rubber. “It works quite well for one lap, we can get the most out of the tire,” says Vinales, who has qualified on the first row twice in the last three race weekends. But things went backwards in the races themselves. “We have to manage to get the tire to go the distance. We are still putting too much pressure on the tire, which is making it too hot. This means we are using up a lot of tire, I can no longer drop the hammer like I did in Austin.”
The problems have been identified at Aprilia, and the three-week MotoGP break due to the cancellation of the Kazakhstan Grand Prix is now being used to find a solution. A first approach already exists. “We need to try a different suspension. Maybe one that is a little softer and has a different compressor,” suggests ‘Top Gun’, hoping for an improvement in Assen: “Our motorcycle is much better suited to this track than it was recently at Mugello, for example. We’ll see what’s possible.”