The sixth spherical of the 2024 marketing campaign takes place this weekend on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and is predicted to be a powerful searching floor for Aprilia.
That is due to Aleix Espargaro’s run to victories within the dash and the grand prix final yr on the venue, whereas Maverick Vinales was second within the latter to finish Aprilia’s first 1-2 in MotoGP.
Vinales says a repeat could be “a dream” this weekend, however has moved to cease expectation being mounted on Aprilia’s shoulders for previous precedent.
“I don’t know,” he mentioned in France when requested, after ending fifth, if Barcelona was the observe for Aprilia to return to the highest step of the rostrum.
“Will probably be a dream for certain, however we don’t know. It’s tough to say on this championship as a result of every part can change.
“The tyres are a bit bit totally different, so new know-how. We don’t know the way it works in Montmelo, so we must be good sufficient to not put an excessive amount of expectation on ourselves, to be trustworthy.
“If now we have an excellent Friday we’ll placed on expectation and we’ll go for every part. However initially, we have to see how issues go there. Could in Montmelo, [there can be] quite a lot of rain. So, we’ll see.”
Photograph by: Marc Fleury
What occurred on the 2023 Catalan GP?
The Catalan GP capped off a whirlwind few weeks for the manufacturing unit Aprilia squad, which started in August with a win for Aleix Espargaro on the British GP.
With the traits of Silverstone and Barcelona being related, whereas the low-grip nature of the latter lending itself to the sturdy traction of the RS-GP – in addition to Espargaro’s extra old-school using model, Aprilia was a drive on the Catalan GP.
It was 1-2 with Espargaro and Vinales in each of Friday’s follow periods, whereas RNF Aprilia’s Miguel Oliveira topped Saturday morning’s FP2.
Oliveira then topped Q1 on his 2022-spec RS-GP, whereas Francesco Bagnaia on the manufacturing unit Ducati lastly halted Aprilia’s stranglehold on the highest of the occasions in Q2 with pole.
However Espargaro, beginning second, overhauled him within the dash to win by 1.989s, with Vinales third. And within the grand prix, Espargaro beat Vinales by 0.377s to attain his second Sunday win of the season.
Aprilia’s successful type has light once more in 2024
The 2024 RS-GP got here into the season as a motorcycle that Vinales wasn’t proud of however Espargaro raved about over its step ahead.
However Vinales was in a position to be on podium tempo in Portugal after Aprilia was in a position to enhance the steadiness for him to utilise his using model correctly. A gearbox subject thwarted his hopes, however a primary victory since 2021 adopted at Austin.
Photograph by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Nonetheless, since then, Aprilia’s type has dipped away. Poor qualifying outcomes for Espargaro and Vinales at Jerez made life tough, whereas the latter skilled “a put on subject” with a component on the bike he raced that meant he struggled to ninth.
At Le Mans, Vinales may do not more than fifth as team-mate Espargaro light out of the rostrum battle within the early levels to finish up ninth (although two run-ins with riders additionally hindered his progress).
As MotoGP heads to a weekend during which Aprilia is predicted to do properly, Vinales was requested in France what the marque must do to interrupt by the ceiling it’s seemingly caught at.
“It’s an excellent query,” he mentioned. “I want to do the step within the subsequent races. Clearly, we go to Montmelo and the expectations shall be very excessive, however we must be conservative [and consider] that possibly the Ducati has improved rather a lot.
“It is going to even be sturdy on this observe. However for the remainder of the tracks, we have to verify methods to make this subsequent step. Clearly there shall be tracks that shall be higher and never.
“I believed that once I got here [to Le Mans] the weekend must be good, however the guys have been telling me possibly this was not one of the best for the bike and in the long run they have been proper.”