Maverick Vinales pinpoints key Aprilia weakness | Gap to leaders “unacceptable”

Maverick Vinales says the Austrian MotoGP highlighted braking issues Aprilia must solve, after struggling to a distant seventh and an "unacceptable" deficit to its rivals.

The Red Bull Ring is one of Aprilia’s weakest circuits as its stop-and-go layout works against the RS-GP’s strengths in high-speed corners.

As has been the case recently, Aprilia showed strong form in the sprint, with Aleix Espargaro coming third after Marc Marquez crashed out of second late on.

But in the grand prix, Vinales was 24.322s behind race winner Francesco Bagnaia in seventh, with Espargaro losing eighth late on to Franco Morbidelli.

After sounding the alarm bells at the British GP, particularly over tyre degradation, Vinales has identified braking as a key area for Aprilia to work on.

“We are understanding what we need,” he said.

“Basically, it’s on brakes. I think what we understand and what I feel is that we are not loading the front tyre well.

“So, we are not taking out the maximum performance of the front tyre.

“Somehow it gives you a bad feeling, especially through the race when everything gets hotter and the pressure goes up. So, it will be important in Aragon to work on that.”

He added: “It was a defensive race. I tried to squeeze out as much as possible. On this circuit, in particular, I struggle with braking.

“It was hard to stop the bike. To be honest, I think it is a good result and I earned important points anyway.

“There are some areas where the bike was very strong and we know that there are things we need to improve, like braking.”

Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola says the team “collected some important data to analyse” in Austria, but slammed the gap to its rivals.

“We confirmed once again that we are competitive in qualifying and in the sprint race,” he said.

“Unfortunately, yet again in the long race, when the distance increases, tyre degradation arrives and we lose competitiveness.

“We knew that this was not one of the most favourable tracks for our bike, but we also encountered some excessive temperature issues.

“We certainly collected some important data to analyse in order to improve. All we can do is keep working, because the gap behind the others in the race is unacceptable.”