MotoGP | Vinales stopped by the gearbox: “I knew it would happen”

Maverick Vinales will hardly forget the Portuguese Grand Prix, which gave him both joy and sorrow. The weekend began with a gastroenteritis that seemed to stop him on Friday's free practice, but in the Sprint he found his first success with Aprilia, returning to the top after more than 1000 days. On Sunday, however, he had a bitter ending, because when he was fighting for the second step of the podium he ended up on the ground on the last lap.

The cause can be attributed to a gearbox problem, which affected the Spaniard from the start of the race, causing him to finish it prematurely. On the main straight at the start of the last lap, Maverick was seen performing a strange manoeuvre, then going wide at Turn 1 and crashing to the ground, thus ending his “Godzilla” weekend.

“From lap six I had a problem engaging sixth gear and I knew the gearbox would break,” the Aprilia rider told the media after the race. “I had to go to the lever five or six times for it to go in. Then, on the last lap, I was left in a deadlock and as I exited the corner the second gear suddenly came in and I flew. I pulled out my leg to signal that I had a problem, started to press the lever and the second one suddenly went in. I didn't do anything serious, we have three weeks, so I will recover well for Austin.”

Not the weekend finale we expected, after what we saw throughout the Portuguese Grand Prix. Not even gastroenteritis stopped Vinales, who concretely showed the great steps forward of the RS-GP, going on to conquer the Sprint by force. Sunday's race was also solid, at least until the gearbox betrayed the Spaniard.

“It doesn't worry me, but it has been repeated in recent years and Aleix also had this problem,” highlighted the rider from Roses. “The good thing is that this problem is identified, but the brand needs to work on it so that it doesn't happen again. It's a wake-up call for Aprilia to improve reliability.”

Despite what happened, Vinales can leave Portugal smiling. Saturday's victory definitively unlocked him and he is proving to be more and more comfortable aboard the RS-GP, a bike with which he is acquiring great confidence: “We must be very proud of what we did this weekend. I think we have made a huge step forward compared to Qatar.”