The Catalan made his official debut with Aprilia in Aragon after being fired from Yamaha. Viñales, who completed two days of testing with the RS-GP at Misano the previous week, improved his fastest lap by 2.4s over the weekend.
After qualifying 19th on the grid, Viñales finished his first race with Aprilia 18th, 27.1s behind the winner, Pecco Bagnaia, and 18s behind his teammate Aleix Espargaró.
The rider from Róses (Girona) was satisfied with his performance, since he obtained important data that will help him in his adaptation to the Aprilia, although he admits that it is a challenge for him.
“I’m not in my comfort zone anymore, so this is a challenge,” Viñales said. “It’s a great challenge. It’s true that the result is the result, but for us these six races are like a wish, and it’s nice because we can start working, we can start to understand each other and this is the point where we have to work”.
“I would like to be at the front from the first race, but it’s not fair [to expect that]. I have to work harder and I need to understand the bike a little more. We have to go step by step. There will be a point where we will take a big step, that’s clear”.
Viñales is clear that the main point he must work on with the Aprilia is at the corner entry, since he still lacks confidence in the front end to be able to get the most out of the RS-GP.
“I need to improve the corner entry a lot because I was used to doing it one way [at Yamaha] and now I have to change a bit. I still don’t have the confidence to do it. It will come.”
“In traction I felt pretty good and this is very positive. Also the tire life was good the whole race, I was able to push until the last few laps. So there are positive things, even if the race wasn’t perfect.”
“It is clear that there is something negative that I have to improve, and for sure the boys have to help me a little.
(Click on the link or on the image to see all the photos of Maverick Viñales at the 2021 MotoGP Aragon GP)
A problem that Viñales always complained about at Yamaha was the change in grip at the time of the race after the passage of Moto2. However, Viñales says he didn’t notice a significant drop from practice to Sunday at Motorland.
“I did the same pace as in FP4, so I didn’t notice a loss of grip. At the beginning of the race I was limited because I had a few riders in front of me, plus I didn’t know the bike, I didn’t know how much I could push. But then, at Halfway through the race, I felt quite good and in the end we were quite competitive. Step by step we will get there, I am quite sure. This has been the first step”, he clinched.
