‘It’s a pity’ - heat problems return to haunt Aprilia

After seeing his MotoGP title challenge fade away during the overseas rounds last season, Aleix Espargaro aims to make amends by breaking into the championship top four at the flyaways this time around.

Peter McLaren

25 Sep 2023

Aleix Espargaro, MotoGP, Indian MotoGP, 23 September

But unfortunately for the Aprilia rider, the first of those events, in India, ended with another heat-related technical issue.

Riding on a Buddh layout that didn’t naturally suit the following style of the RS-GP, Espargaro progressed from ninth to seventh when his engine lost drive at mid-distance of the Sunday race.

"It’s a pity to finish the weekend this way,” said Espargaro winner at Silverstone and Catalunya. “These were three difficult days but today, in spite of everything, I could have made a play for the top five and I felt good.”

Aprilia were keen to emphasise that it had not been an engine failure as such, but the end result was still a cause for concern given the likelihood of more scorching hot events in places like Japan (this weekend), Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

“The problem happened suddenly. What I noticed throughout the weekend was the great amount of heat on the bike and this has created some problems for us in the past,” Espargaro said.

“It’s something that we need to analyse because other races in high temperatures are coming up. We don’t have much time available, but I hope that the Aprilia team will be able to resolve the problem."

Espargaro, who crashed in the Saturday Sprint, heads to Japan still fifth in the world championship but having slipped 32 points behind KTM’s Brad Binder.

Team-mate Maverick Vinales went the distance to finish in tenth place after being bumped back by contact in the first corner.

"On the first corner I was forced to go wide and found myself in last place,” Vinales said. “From there, I began to recover, pushing constantly to the limit. In any case, I am extremely happy because I felt very good on the bike.

“We made great improvements throughout the weekend. This morning in the warm-up session we found a setting that allowed me to brake hard, which was exactly where we struggled most here in India, and the race was the best session of the entire weekend.

“I really think that we are leaving India having made a huge step forward."