Maverick Vinales : Gearbox Problem, The ‘Gorilla’ Was Thrown From His Bike

RiderTua.com – With just one lap remaining, Maverick Vinales believes he can still fight Jorge Martin for victory at the Portuguese GP despite having difficulty using sixth gear on the main straight for most of the race. After winning the sprint race, the Aprilia rider was chasing the dream of achieving a double victory but his hopes were dashed when he went in the wrong direction on the main straight for the second time.

As he frantically stepped on the gear lever again to try to reach sixth gear, Vinales lost second place to Enea Bastianini. What was even worse was that in Turn 1 after going wide as he tried to shift gears as desperately as he could, he went highside suddenly. What happened was: The gearbox was damaged, the selector was problematic for most of the race and then caused him to “slip” from his bike because he activated it incorrectly… The gorilla was defeated by his bike…

Maverick Vinales : Gearbox Problems, Thrown From His Bike

Maverick Vinales explained, “I tried to use sixth gear, but it didn’t go in. So the bike went into neutral and I pressed the RPM limiter. I stretched out my leg so that Bastianini understood that I had a problem. I kept trying to use sixth gear but failed. So I went back into second gear at turn 1 and when I touched the gas (gear) it went into second gear and then I had a highside. The bike didn’t lock up.”

The rider nicknamed Top Gun added that he would not say this was disappointing, but he would say that this might be a concern to improve its reliability. Vinales strongly encourages all Aprilia technicians to improve their abilities in this field. According to him, this is important if they want to fight every weekend, especially to win.

Considering such teething problems, Vinales’ race speed can be said to be extraordinary. The 28 year old rider recorded the 2nd fastest lap of the race behind Enea Bastianini, on lap 20 of 24 although his top speed varied from 334.3 to 345.0 km/h on the main straight.

“It’s amazing how when I get the right balance, I can go very fast with this bike. Starting from lap 6, the shift from 5th to 6th gear sometimes doesn’t come in. So I press the RPM for too long and lose a lot of top speed and lose 0, 1 second,” said Vinales, who struggled with the 2024 RS-GP throughout pre-season testing and the season-opening race in Qatar.

Aleix Espargaro’s teammate continued, “But apart from that, I was able to go in 38 seconds and that was extraordinary. Throughout the race I thought I could fight for victory. The problem was that the gearbox was getting worse all the time. I just prayed that the gear could go (into gear during the race) because I pressed five times and then it went into gear.”

“So every time I lost 0.2 seconds on the main track and then I would recover all the gap again. Even with all these problems I would still be around ‘38.8 seconds. It’s hard to believe because it could be ‘38.6 seconds. I don’t know what to say. Sometimes this can happen. I prefer it to happen when we are ahead,” he added.

Vinales experienced a similar problem at Jerez last year. “The feeling on the bike is similar, but I don’t know if the problem is exactly the same. Anyway, I finished this weekend with a sprint win. Very happy. I will just say that I am really motivated and I see myself winning races again,” said Nina’s father.

Raquel’s husband emphasized, “I really want to say to Aprilia that this must be an encouragement for the next race. And the upcoming series is truly extraordinary, especially for me. So we must be happy and we must be really proud of what we did this weekend.”

Vinales is a MotoGP race winner with Suzuki and Yamaha, he will continue to chase race wins with Aprilia at COTA-Texas next month.