Top Gun evolves
How CoTA winners Viñales and Aprilia made an unexpected climb to the top of MotoGP
To make a classic comeback, first you have to suffer. Maverick Viñales is the perfect example. His Saturday Sprint win was pole-toflag but Sunday’s win couldn’t have been more different.
In a class and at a track where overtaking is reckoned near impossible, he made a poor start then got barged out of the top ten in the first corner.
He finished lap one, already back to ninth, well over two seconds behind the disappearing leaders.
From there, he said: “I never gave up.” Making pass after pass, not always successful at first but immediately trying again, he moved steadily forward, taking the lead – and control – on lap 13 of 20, declaring: “It was like a dream.”
COMEBACK DNA
Sunday’s comeback was a metaphor for Maverick’s career. The erratic one-time Moto3 champion has returned from dismal times and a complete slump in MotoGP.
He joined Suzuki and gave them a comeback win in 2016, and was then poached by Yamaha as Valentino Rossi’s teammate.
Eight race wins in four-and-ahalf seasons showed his strength until a slow-burn meltdown in 2021. He could qualify well, but seemed unable to start fast. And for race after race he failed to recover.
Increasingly frustrated, it came to a head at the Red Bull Ring, when after pleading to be released from his contract he deliberately tried to blow up his M1, and was sacked.
Viñales was now damaged goods. It looked like his career was over.
THE RESCUERS
One man is key to Viñales’s return to the top: Aprilia racing team chief Massimo Rivola. After an early career in F1, including ten years with Ferrari, the Italian joined Aprilia as sporting director in 2019.
This freed technical chief Romano Albesiano to concentrate on machine development, which has clearly born fruit.
Outsiders saw Rivola’s hiring of down-at-heel Viñales as a gamble. He was unapologetic. “I rate Maverick as one of the very best, maybe even the best talent in the paddock,” he said at the time.
Maverick took three podiums in 2022, but results remained mixed, high points often undermined.
The 2024 season suggests that Viñales’ progress – like that of the bike – is now complete.
APRILIA SHOW THE WAY
Maverick’s win breaks a run of eleven Ducati victories. Perhaps
‘Outsiders saw hiring Viñales as a gamble’
significantly it was at one of the circuits they were beaten at last year. Perhaps it means something more. For at both CoTA races Maverick’s sweet-steering Aprilia made the rival Ducatis look clumsy.
Nor was the RS-GP24 down on speed on the long Texas straight.
Aprilia’s premier-class history has been chequered. A plucky 400cc “super-250” for the 500 class was followed by the raucous but flawed 990cc triple.
The V4 arrived in 2015, an underdog, The crucial development was a shift from the company’s trademark 75-degree to a classnormal 90-degree V4 in 2020.
The final bugbear was reliability, but the gearbox failure that cost Viñales a certain podium at Portimao was blamed on human error, not mechanical failure.
CONTRACT TIME
Fabio Quartararo, 22 seconds away in 12th, was too far behind to admire the Aprilia’s form. But he had the leisure to contemplate refusing the Italian company’s offer, in favour of a reported 12-millioneuro purse to stay with Yamaha.
With almost all contracts coming up for renewal and Aleix Espargaro expected to retire, Sunday’s win has added lustre if not comparable lucre to a second seat with Aprilia.
A link-up with Jorge Martin makes sense for both. Disillusioned after being passed over by Ducati in favour of Bastianini last year, he speaks openly of his desire for a full factory ride. There is at least one other intriguing possibility. How about Marc Marquez?
THE TRIPLE-WIN HISTORY MAKER
Rossi couldn’t do it – his Ducati dream turned sour. Lorenzo’s chances disappeared in a slew of crashes on a Honda. But Maverick’s Sunday win wrote him into history – the first MotoGP rider to win on three different makes.
His victory portfolio includes Suzuki, Yamaha and now Aprilia. Miller counts Honda and Ducati, Rins Suzuki and Honda. Neither look likely to take a triple this year.
Most riders tend to stick with one make, so the achievement is rare throughout 75 years of 500cc/ MotoGP history. Only Mike Hailwood (Norton, MV Agusta, Honda), Randy Mamola (Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda), Eddie Lawson (Yamaha, Honda, Cagiva) and Loris Capirossi (Yamaha, Honda, Ducati) have managed it in the past.