Viñales: "Aleix's mistake will not affect Aprilia's good moment"

Barcelona was being the perfect weekend for Aprilia, with Aleix Espargaró leading almost all the sessions and achieving pole position, and with Maverick Viñales getting stronger and finishing second, with a ‘double’ in two practices. The festivities at Noale’s house were going to culminate with a new podium for Aleix, who came second on the penultimate lap, but the Spanish rider got confused, thinking that he had finished the race, and stopped giving gas starting to celebrate when there was still a turn. The result is that Aprilia missed out on a podium finish and a handful of points overall.

However, this unfortunate mistake will not take its toll on the “sweet moment” that the Italian house is going through and that is not a blow.

“No, not at all, the result is there, he made a mistake and finished fourth or fifth, but who cares, he was second and the result was there. After the mistake he reacted and continued strong, with a lot of traction and he recovered one place, so I imagine I would have finished second if it hadn’t been for the mistake, and that’s a good result. We have to continue believing and working, the season is very long and we have to keep working, Aprilia is doing very well and we are at a good time, nothing is going to change.

As far as his race is concerned, Maverick, who finished 7th, was satisfied.

“It was a solid race, we have to continue building the house little by little. The first lap was crazy, I was behind Alex Rins, we started very well and overtook many riders, but Takaaki Nakagami came like crazy and it crashed. I lost a lot of positions there and with the soft tire I had to keep it from the start. I didn’t find any extras but it gave us the opportunity to finish seventh, we equaled our best result and we continue to grow”.

Regarding that Nakagami incident at the start, Maverick considers that the criteria for sanctions must be changed.

“My point of view is that the penalties are a bit strange. Many times in MotoGP there are a thousand riders waiting on the track and that is the example we give to the Moto3 boys, and that is not going to be corrected. Yesterday Nakagami was waiting for me at box for me to come out and he followed me, if we don’t set an example, they will do the same in Moto3, and the penalties are much harsher in the small categories than in MotoGP, and that shouldn’t be the case. category, neutrals, whoever you are, the penalty should be the same. If someone kicks two riders in Moto3 they receive a penalty, then…”

“It’s not the first time that Nakagami has done these things, in Argentina if I didn’t get to lift the bike I would have thrown myself. We have a gap in this aspect that we have to work on. More than anything so that the penalties are the same in the three categories” .

That Monday the official MotoGP test is held in Montmeló, where Aprilia will continue to squeeze the advantages it still has as a team with concessions.

“I have several things that I would like to try, some chassis and swingarm, also aerodynamics, we will try a little of everything, but I want to focus on finding better sensations, especially over one lap. There is a lot of work to do because the room for improvement is very great”, settled the boy from the Costa Brava.

Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia Racing Team