Maverick Vinales : Aprilia Suitable for the Portimao Track

RiderTua.com – Maverick Vinales wants to show Aprilia’s potential in Portimao after being dissatisfied with the results from the season-opening race in Qatar. Even though he has yet to find a comfortable balance with the 2024 RS-GP, the 28-year-old rider feels the extra downforce it produces can help him have a strong race weekend with the roller-coaster layout of the Algarve circuit. Since his first lap, Aleix Espargaro has felt comfortable with the new bike which is aerodynamically more sophisticated. But Vinales’ teammate and Trackhouse rider Miguel Oliveira is still trying to adapt to the machine in what Vinales described as ‘a very big change’.

Maverick Vinales : Aprilia Suitable for the Portimao Track

After finishing 9th in the sprint and finishing 10th in the main race at Lusail Qatar, Vinales said, “Doha does not reflect our potential, so we have to keep working and stay focused. Portimao has been a good track for me and also for the bike . And especially for this year’s bike, I think it will be strong. Looking at the downforce and all the things that this bike brings, this might be a very good track for us.”

Vinales started the 2023 season as the best Aprilia rider by finishing in 5th (sprint) and 2nd (main race) in Portimao. And after finding a consistent balance with the 2023 RS-GP, the Spanish rider began to feel confident, especially for time attacks. That happened again in 2024. “At the end of the year, we found a balance. I really like to ‘push’ the bike and the bike allows me to ‘push’ too. We were at the front, even at tracks where we usually struggle like Austria, Vinales said. So basically, for him this is more a matter of motor balance. For some reason, sometimes when he puts on new tires, Vinales can’t turn and can’t make a good racing line. So he couldn’t get the maximum out of his bike…

The rider nicknamed Top Gun explained, “Of course, the first impression when I rode the new bike was very different from what I expected because the changes were very big. Honestly, but maybe in a good direction. So we have to keep working, we need to do a lot of laps with this bike. With the 2023 bike we have had 1 year and in the end we achieved very good settings. Basically this year’s bike has a stronger front grip. And the rear grip is slightly reduced. And that gives us a different feeling. Especially when we do time attack. But it’s a matter of balance because the weight distribution is a little different. So I’m not worried about that because I know we’ll recover speed and we’ll be fast.”

Vinales said that he abandoned the 2023 version of the bike which he thought was good and now they need to do it again. That’s the only way. For him, this is a matter of setting. The team needs to change the set-up and try to recover the rear grip they need, concluded Vinales.