Aprilia did not have an easy weekend with the first-ever GP in India. Alexi Espargaró was forced to retire from the long race on Sunday and Maverick Vinales was pushed off track in the first corner, yet managed to stay in the race, finishing in 8th place.
Despite this, in the debrief, #12 showed satisfaction in being able to make a good recovery after some adjustments to his bike’s settings, stating that it is a good sign to be on pace with the top five, even in an unfavorable weekend:
– Yes, I was pushed out in the first corner and ended up last. But then the recovery was very good, so I am happy. We never found a good feeling on the bike this weekend, but in the warm up we changed the setup a lot, to something we had never explored before and wanted to race like that to understand. Honestly, I had the best feeling of the weekend during the race, so it’s something to learn from. You know I always say we have to be positive. At the end of a very, very bad weekend, we finished eighth, but potentially without going off track we could have been in the top 5. In a bad weekend, that is fantastic. We got the setup a bit late, but you know, new track (…) But I’m happy, there was something very positive on the bike that I tried today, especially in the brakes.
Asked what wasn’t working on his Aprilia, Maverick Vinales was clear, reiterating that he was happy despite the less positive result:
– Just struggling a lot with the rear on the brakes. But in the warm up we changed the bike a lot and I wanted to race with that, wanted to bet on that because I know that if you race with a new setup you can always understand something. We understood that this way I can brake later and that is fantastic, because in Japan you have to brake late. Even if the result is not what I like or where I think we can be, it is very positive because we found something in the brakes, which we couldn’t find in the test.
