Maverick Viñales bids farewell to Aprilia after finishing the 2024 MotoGP season in seventh place. The year began promisingly with a victory at the Grand Prix of the Americas, sparking hopes of a successful campaign.
However, as the season progressed, Aprilia’s performance waned, a recurring issue that Viñales noted during his time with the team:
– The bike showed a great potential in some parts of the championship, but I feel there is something repetitive – in the years I was in Aprilia, the second part of the season was very difficult for all the Aprilias, so it’s difficult to understand. Because the tracks are usually good for us, but when you arrive in the second part of the season and it’s difficult.
According to Viñales, there is still no clear explanation for that drop in performance: ‘I don’t know why, because we tried everything; we changed swingarms, chassis, trying to really understand what’s going on. But we don’t know. Maybe the idea I can have is that we started at the maximum, and the others were struggling a bit with the new bike, and then they took the next step’.