Vinales: Fixing braking performance key to Aprilia returning to the front

Maverick Vinales believes improving the braking performance will be “key” in catapulting Aprilia near the front of the MotoGP grid.

Americas GP winner Vinales made that comment after the start/stop nature of the Red Bull Ring exposed a major weakness of the RS-GP, with both him and team-mate Aleix Espargaro struggling to slow down the bike as effectively as their rivals.

The Spaniard explained that he couldn’t transfer the weight of the bike to the front tyre under braking, an area where the class-leading Ducati GP24 has been particularly strong.

“Especially in these kinds of tracks where brakes are everything, we are struggling a little bit, especially to stop the bike,” he said.

“We know we need to improve the braking area, especially [on the] back straight we need to improve this power to stop the bike.

“It depends upon how you load the front tyre, so probably still we are not loading [it] in the correct way.

“You can see the Ducatis, they are all the time really loose on the rear, so they can make stopping really easy going to the brakes.

Enea Bastianini, Ducati Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“Looks like our bike, when you brake, the downforce is pushing you all the time to the ground [and] not doing the [weight] transfer. We are trying to understand if that is the problem but it takes time.

“This morning [in warm-up], I was trying to transfer everything to the front and less on the rear and it was impossible.

“Now we need to understand how we need to load the front tyre because the key to be back in the front [in MotoGP] is that.”

Espargaro’s race in Austria was compromised to the point that he felt he had “no brakes” at all, finishing ninth and two spots behind Vinales.

The 35-year-old was classified almost 29s down on race winner Francesco Bagnaia, losing more than a second per lap on average to the factory Ducati rider.

“I [felt like I] had no brakes from the beginning,” he said. “Apart from the pressure and the temperature of the front tyre, the temperature of the carbon [disc] was completely over the limit.

“We set a new record and I had no brakes for all race. I just tried to stop the bike with the rear, but it was a shame. I was very slow.”

Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

There is an urgency in the Aprilia camp to recover from its recent dip in performances, with company CEO Massimo Rivola admitting that the manufacturer must be doing something wrong in MotoGP.

The Noale factory brought out a major upgrade to the RS-GP for the start of the season, focusing primarily on aerodynamics, allowing Vinales to win the third round of the season in Austin. However, both Vinales and Espargaro have found the going tough in recent races, with KTM now just 14 points behind it in the standings.

Asked if Aprilia’s increasing reliance on aero was having an unintended consequence on braking, Espargaro said: “Yes, in our system, everything is very, very close. Normally we are the ones with higher front tyre pressure and front [tyre] temperature.

“This is the reason why in Silverstone I was able to use the hard front and I was the only one because I put [in] a lot of temperature. So in colder races, this is an advantage.

“But when we have this track temperature, it's a big, big problem. No brakes at all. The carbon was completely over the limit with the biggest disks. So the design, there we have to change.”