The strange quirk of Aprilia’s recent MotoGP campaigns revealed by Vinales
‘It was difficult to understand’
Maverick Vinales has reflected on a strange quirk of his tenure with Aprilia in MotoGP, noting that the “second part of the season was very difficult” always for the RS-GP.
The Spaniard joined Aprilia in the latter stages of the 2021 season following his acrimonious split with Yamaha, and spent three full campaigns with the Italian brand to the end of 2024.
Vinales achieved his first and only grand prix win on the RS-GP in 2024 at the Americas GP, having also shown strong in the previous round in Portugal.
However, he later admitted that neither he nor Aprilia understands quite why they were so fast at that point of the championship.
Vinales noted that America wasn’t the only time he felt his best on the Aprilia, but commented that in his years there the RS-GP’s form always slumped in the second half of a year.
“I had a few races where I had a great feeling,” he said last month in Barcelona.
“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.”
In the first 10 rounds of the 2024, the factory Aprilia squad managed three sprint wins, a grand prix victory and cracked the top five on Sundays four times.
In the last 10 rounds, it managed just two sprint podiums and one top five in a grand prix as it slid to third in the constructors' standings behind KTM - whom Vinales joins in 2025 with the Tech3 team.
Vinales theorises the reason for this was that Aprilia began each season at the bike’s highest level, while its rivals came on better later in the year.
“I don’t know, because we tried everything,” he said when asked what he thought caused this trend.
“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.”
