How MotoGP’s underdog team hopes to “evolve” its enigma

MotoGP Unlimited, Amazon’s new eight-part docuseries in the vein of Drive to Survive set for release on 14 March, takes us behind the scenes with Maverick Vinales and the souring of his relationship with Yamaha in 2021.

It’s the kind of thing MotoGP Unlimited needed to deliver and it has made for compelling television. What the series will also (hopefully) do is change the perception of Vinales. As everyone who works in the MotoGP paddock knows, he is an incredibly down-to-earth person and is wickedly fast.

On the outside it’s easy for a casual observer to think Vinales is nothing more than a one-trick pony battling too many demons. But this deep dive behind the scenes of the MotoGP paddock Unlimited has done shows the real Vinales.

The souring of his relationship with Yamaha is well-documented, his frustrations with not being able to perform to his maximum on the M1 leading to an irreparable rift forming between himself and Yamaha management. This all came to a head in Austria last August when he tried to deliberately damage his M1 by overrevving its engine in the Styrian Grand Prix.

He was subsequently suspended, then dropped, before taking up refuge at Aprilia from the Aragon GP onwards – completing a move that had already been rumoured during the Assen weekend in June.

The point of the early beginnings to the Vinales/Aprilia relationship was to essentially give the Spaniard – winner of the season-opening Qatar GP last year – an extended pre-season testing phase to get to know the bike and the team.

Of the five races he contested (he missed the Austin round following the death of his cousin Dean Berta Vinales in a World Supersport 300 crash) Vinales achieved a best of eighth at the Emilia Romagna GP – his second race at Misano that year, having made his Aprilia debut at the venue in a private test ahead of Aragon.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team Gresini

Photo by: Team Gresini

Aprilia is on the cusp of great things in MotoGP. It made a giant leap forward in 2021 with its RS-GP, having been the only marque allowed to fully develop its motorcycle over the winter and throughout the year due to its status as a concession manufacturer.

Aleix Espargaro brought the marque its first podium in the modern MotoGP era when he rode to third at the British Grand Prix and finished eighth overall in the standings in his best season with Aprilia.

Signing Vinales was no courtesy gesture. Aprilia’s own dithering in waiting for the Andrea Iannone doping situation to be resolved (with the one-time race winner ultimately handed a four-year ban) across 2020 meant it lost out on several top names for 2021, including Cal Crutchlow, with it deciding to field Lorenzo Savadori last year in an underwhelming move.

“Basically with Aprilia we would like to build a good team, also on the mental side. And for the preparation of the race weekend, we need to be ready. So, basically, it’s about building a good team around myself and keep believing" Maverick Vinales

But the opportunity to snatch up Vinales and get him on the bike as soon as possible when it became clear continuing with Yamaha was no longer an option was an opportunity too good to miss. Massimo Rivola’s arrival from Ferrari in Formula 1 as Aprilia’s CEO in 2019 has proven to be the shot in the arm the marque needed, and when he spoke to our Spanish language sister website Motorsport.es, he didn’t mince his words when speaking about his line-up.

“I think, rider-wise, we probably have the strongest pair in the paddock. And I say that sincerely. This puts pressure on us technicians,” Rivola said during the Malaysia pre-season test last month.

That’s a bold statement when you consider how stacked the card is in MotoGP, but it’s undeniable that the Aprilia line-up is – to borrow an AC/DC quote – hard as a rock. Espargaro is a devastatingly committed individual and Vinales has speed few can match when he is at his absolute best.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: MotoGP

The problem is, the days when the Maverick Vinales turns up have been few and far between since he switched from Suzuki to Yamaha in 2017.

Aprilia knows there is no turning back now: it simply cannot afford to fail as it enters the eight year of its MotoGP return and its first as a standalone factory squad, having previously run its effort in conjunction with Gresini Racing. Since his signing, Aprilia has given off the impression that it sees Vinales as the rider who can do great things for it.

This is certainly borne out in the work it has been doing over the winter to try and get the best version of Vinales to appear in 2022.

Part of this has been bringing onboard Fabrizio Maganzi as his trainer as part of a working group to help Vinales. Maganzi previously worked with Fernando Alonso at Renault in 2005 and 2006 when the Spaniard won both of his world titles. But more crucially, Aprilia has got Vinales to work with a sports psychologist.

This was something Vinales wouldn’t do in the past despite Yamaha’s best attempts. When you consider how open former team-mate Fabio Quartararo has been about working with a psychologist and how that clearly manifested itself between 2020 and 2021, it’s always been thought that Vinales could benefit from the same help.

Rivola notes that Vinales “has been very brave” in allowing these changes to be implemented, and when asked by Autosport about this new working group the nine-time race winner said the benefits were immediate.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: MotoGP

“Basically with Aprilia we would like to build a good team, also on the mental side,” Vinales said. “And for the preparation of the race weekend, we need to be ready. So, basically, it’s about building a good team around myself and keep believing.

“It looks like it’s starting to work and this is something good. At the end you have to see it on the race weekend, but straight away I see I’m fast, the confident is high and I just feel good and I enjoyed myself a lot on track.”

The 2022 Aprilia appears to be another step in the right direction for the brand, with Espargaro and Vinales second and fourth at the Sepang test (albeit they did have extra days beforehand owing to their concessions), while Espargaro was fourth overall and Vinales eighth at the end of the Mandalika test.

One of the key points of feedback that came from Espargaro after testing was about how well the new Aprilia can turn. At Sepang, this did lead to some chatter – though that’s not uncommon at the Malaysian GP venue. The fact Vinales has come from riding the two best handling bikes on the grid in the Yamaha and the Suzuki makes Aprilia’s latest gain no coincidence.

“Maverick has brought a huge knowledge of a type of bike that was turning very well, like the Suzuki and the Yamaha,” Rivola said. “Being such a sensitive rider, I think it will also be an advantage in the development of the bike.”

“Being such a sensitive rider,” as Rivola says of Vinales means his adaptation process to the RS-GP is taking longer than he expected. That’s largely down to the fact the bike is built around a V4 engine, while the Yamaha and Suzuki are built around inline four-cylinder motor. Chiefly, this has changed the way Vinales needs to enter corners and exit them.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: MotoGP

“It’s always hard to say because in one tenth there is six riders,” Vinales said. “It’s difficult. I’m still adapting to the bike, but in the other hand you have to push. You have six riders under lap record in this track, however I have to push. Even if I am adapting, I have to push, I have to take out the best of the bike. I think I will be ready, I hope in Qatar, but if not, I think in Jerez I will be at the maximum. It’s taking much longer, I expected to fit better just when I jumped on the bike. But it’s not like that. I have to get used to the engine.”

If Vinales does take until May’s Spanish GP to get full acquainted with the Aprilia, that’s two more months and five races of testing coming his way. This will put his mental resolve to the test, and thus act as a true test of the efforts Aprilia has put in behind the scenes over the winter to help him.

“I’m very curious to see how Maverick reacts under pressure,” Rivola stated. “After what I had been told and what I had seen of him on television, we want to see if we have been able to make him evolve.”

Should Aprilia succeed in ‘evolving’ Vinales, it sees this partnership as something long-term, Rivola claiming “our idea is to continue with him until we can”. The early signs in 2022 are that Aprilia has been able to bring about positive change with Vinales.

And given what we already know about his speed, Aprilia – MotoGP’s smallest manufacturer team and its perennial underdog – could succeed where Yamaha failed and bring out the Vinales who was once grand prix racing’s hottest property…

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: Dorna