When Maverick Vinales made the seemingly-crazy decision to walk away from the title-winning factory Yamaha team in the middle of the 2021 MotoGP season to join also-rans Aprilia at the back of the grid, he was widely derided for making a move seen by many as career suicide.
However, as one of racing’s oldest adages goes, a happy rider is a fast rider, and the Spaniard seems to have rapidly found his love for racing again at the Italian factory – and that’s evidenced by a somewhat under-the-radar result at last Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix that hints at serious potential for the future.
Finishing the race inside the top 10 and only a tenth of a second from team-mate Aleix Espargaro, it was a surprisingly strong result for Vinales – but in perhaps the best sign yet of his potential, he was left wanting more after the race after a poor qualifying position.
Starting the race from 19th place, one spot behind 2020 world champion Joan Mir who described being that far back on the grid as ‘a completely different MotoGP’, Vinales was able to get into the swing of things and eventually come home in ninth – but says the damage was done on the opening laps because of both the starting position and a radical set-up change on the grid.
“The first part of the race is always difficult when you start at the back,” the notoriously poor starter admitted, “and I have to say that honestly I’m not used to starting there and it’s hard for me.
“I have to get used to it, but I hope it doesn’t happen many times. But yeah, it’s difficult. It’s hard for me to choose a line, to overtake fast, and then I lose too much time behind other riders.
“We made a big change on the bike, because this is the sort of big thing that we have to try.
“We used the race as a test, and I’m happy because we chose it at the last minute but it worked really well. In the second part of the race I was able to ride in mid 1m32s, and for the conditions we had today on the track I think this was a really good lap time.
“I need to learn many things in just a few laps. The first laps were already compromised because I never tried this setup and to go straight to the race is always difficult, so I think my potential in this race was even higher.
“I could have rode much faster in the first laps, but I lost so much time. Minimum 10-15 seconds. You go out of the track trying to overtake, you’re stuck behind the others.”
Yet despite the last minute alteration to their set-up, a continuing part of Aprilia’s mission to get him comfortable on the machine, it’s clear that it was a move in the right direction.
Ending the race with the fourth fastest lap and confident that he had podium pace had it not been for the grid spot, Vinales was bursting with confidence after the race about the potential he had seen.
“The change was the balance of the bike,” he explained. “I’m trying to find myself on the bike, and sometimes I feel comfortable and sometimes not.
“This weekend was very tricky because the conditions were changing all the time and somehow it’s hard to develop yourself or improve with these kinds of conditions.
“We changed the weight balance of the bike and it feels much better.
“I need to improve on brakes, because it’s very different. The way of braking from the two bikes I rode this year are very different and still I need to get more confident, but in Misano we made a big improvement in confidence.
“I don’t feel comfortable on the bike and I can be second or third on the fastest lap of the race. It’s always this kind of situation where I don’t feel comfortable but still I’m able to ride fast, and I’m really curious to see what I can do with this bike when I do feel comfortable on the track.”
Still only three races and two tests into his Aprilia career after joining the team late in the season and then missing the Grand Prix of the Americas following the tragic death of his 15-year-old cousin Dean Berta Vinales in the World Supersport 300 championship, Vinales has still had only a very limited amount of time to adapt to the RS-GP.
And, with the Aprilia seemingly a bike that takes time to get comfortable on – a malady also reported by former test rider Andrea Dovizioso – it’s perhaps not a surprise that he’s not yet ready to challenge at the front.
But, with confidence high after Misano and the next round of the championship at Portimao just around the corner, Vinales says he’s at least confident if not comfortable that they can end 2021 on a relative high.
“We need to keep working,” he admitted of his late start to the Aprilia project, “because it’s hard to start with a new bike in the first races, so imagine when everyone already has a lot of kilometres, a lot of races. It’s even harder.
“But inside the top 10 is really nice and step-by-step we’re going to get closer.
“Basically our progression is step by step but what I’m happy about is that we are doing that progression. It’s true that it’s at Misano where we’ve made a lot of laps, but it doesn’t matter because everyone has made a lot of laps here and is able to be fast.
“In Portimao [the next race], with the modifications we’ve made to the set-up, I’m pretty confident.
“I’m even confident that if we had started in the first or second row, I think we were able to be inside the top three or top four. I’m happy that in the end I was able to ride very fast and I didn’t make any mistakes.
“We just need to keep working, but we are in a good way.”
