Maverick Vinales' impending defection from the factory Aprilia team to a customer outfit - KTM's partner Tech3 - has been a source of much confusion in MotoGP, both at the time of the original announcement and now.
Aprilia was very open to keeping Vinales as the team-mate to big-name acquisition Jorge Martin, but turned to Marco Bezzecchi once Vinales made his mind up about leaving.
Vinales' Circuit of the Americas sprint win, pole, fastest lap and grand prix victory all on the same weekend on an Aprilia RS-GP remains a higher peak than anything any KTM RC16 rider has managed this season so far.
Though such highs are now unachievable for anyone not on a Ducati GP24, Aprilia has actually jumped ahead of KTM in the battle for second in the constructors' championship between the time of Vinales' announcement and now.
Despite that, it is easy to list off potential reasons that may have contributed to him leaving - whether they be of a simple financial nature (even though Vinales has insisted this wasn't a major factor), a reluctance to go up against Martin (even though the KTM move will see Vinales face off against a potent line-up in its own right) or any sort of personal slight that has remained private.
Yet Vinales has been consistent in suggesting that his big priority for his next move had been finding a place where he can extract his "maximum" - something he arguably hasn't come close to doing over a full year since his debut in 2016.
And his obvious irritation after the sprint at the Red Bull Ring was that of a rider who clearly doesn't believe that he can do much better than this as an Aprilia rider over the course of a full season.
Vinales said he was "of course" irritated after finishing the sprint in a miserable 11th place - eight spots behind team-mate Aleix Espargaro.
"Sure I'm angry because already Friday you start with the left [wrong] foot.
"Something is broken on the bike, then you go to try different set-ups and the bikes are working really different, on the engine, so you can't try anything.
"It's tough because it's many races like this. Every time we try to make a step, there is something that then we say 'Is this the set-up [not right]? Is this a mechanical failure?'. As a rider, I can't improve.
"I think something Aprilia has to do for the future is to try to improve this kind of thing if they want to make the next step. Because it's very tough.
"For example, on Friday I nearly didn't qualify into Q2 because I had one bike that the brakes were jumping. So, this kind of thing, it's difficult during a weekend because you lose the way because of some problems.
"It's not nice because as a rider I can't take out the maximum with what I can from this bike. I really want to take the maximum from the bike."
Aprilia has not been a beacon of reliability in MotoGP in its current iteration though its current RS-GP is a world away from the laughably fragile offerings of half a decade ago.
But it has remained a manufacturer with a reputation for bursts of performance that aren't sustained over MotoGP's current marathon calendars - whether through component wear-and-tear, or the RS-GP's long-running heat sensitivity, or now the narrow peak operating window of the downforce-oriented 2024 version of the bike.
"I've said this since the beginning - this bike is quite tricky," said Miguel Oliveira, another rider leaving the Aprilia camp at the end of the season.
"You do need a lot of analysing, you need time, you need help to combine all the data. It's not an easy bike. It's performing well - but you need to be in the exact good window to do it. And that doesn't happen every time."
At its best, it remains a stunning machine, one a rejuvenated Espargaro has been using to great effect recently over one lap and in sprint races even against the backdrop of the 2024 Ducatis' near-total dominance.
But while Espargaro has hit a rich vein of form following his retirement decision, Vinales has totally lost what had looked like his firmest grasp yet on the position of the lead Aprilia.
"I think in the beginning of the season we didn't touch anything [on the bike]," he said when asked by The Race about that change in fortunes.
"Everything was fresh, everything was working. Now, when you don't have this, you have that.
"To be honest, I can't do nothing. I really wish to be faster but in this moment it's very tough. But it seems complicated. You start in the front - or there is no chance - with our bike.
"[On Friday] I had problems with the bike - so you arrive to qualifying, you don't arrive with the same determination, because you're missing a lot of laps, a lot of feeling with the bike.
"I did a lap [in Q2] that for sure was 0.3s away of my perfect lap. This puts you in the front row. This kind of thing makes the weekend very different.
"There are a few things that turn the weekend in a good way or in a bad way. And in this moment there are two or three races which are going in a bad way."
Is it simply that Aprilia's weekends get messier the further you get into the season, whether through the aforementioned wear and tear or fatigue or other factors? Vinales isn't so sure.
"It's just little things. We need to have everything under control. At the moment the control is not there. So we need to try to have things under control, and then I think we'll improve for sure."
In the grand prix the following day, it was Espargaro's turn to manage an issue - he "set a new record" for the temperature of his carbon brakes on the front so struggled to get the RS-GP stopped all race.
He said it was part of a wider trend of Aprilia putting more temperature into the front than rivals - an advantage in cooler races but potentially devastating in the heat.
It meant he had no real chance of fighting off Vinales on Sunday, as Vinales did keep his temperatures more under control. "I expected much worse, with the front," he said - but perhaps that's part of the problem.
The KTM RC16 is not a bike devoid of issues but Vinales will feel that he'll have a better idea of what to expect from it on any given day. And he'll also feel that fewer races won't be spent staring at the rear wheel of a rival bike.
"To be honest, if I'm behind a Yamaha or behind an Aprilia, it's normal to pass. You prepare, you pass.
"When you're behind a Ducati or a KTM, it's so complicated. Because they are very fast on the top speed and it's difficult to overtake. Basically I think the top speed is doing the difference."
KTM has that. It has good starts. It has strong straightline braking. But it doesn't have a lot of things that Aprilia has - and may well be slower than Aprilia.
Yet Vinales just sounds like somebody stuck in a career Groundhog Day, wanting as big a change as he can get - which is exactly what going from Aprilia to KTM will accomplish.
