For several years now, Maverick Viñales' career has had a little taste of waste, of unfinished business. Our taste buds began to perceive this flavor as soon as he was ousted from the Yamaha factory team in the summer of 2020, and his time with Aprilia only amplified it. So, yes, "Top Gun" is capable of being fast, but we've only seen its true potential at work since its arrival in MotoGP ? More precisely, doesn’t this 2023 season highlight its limits? Analysis.
Extenuating circumstances
It is also an opportunity to look back on a particularly difficult start to the season for Aprilia. Exactly as we predicted, the firm continues its dynamic of poor results recorded at the end of 2022, and is hardly improving, not to say, not at all.
The 2023 RS-GP, first of all, is very advanced aerodynamically but is nevertheless no more efficient than its predecessor. The pilots manage to perform well, but KTM definitely moved ahead during the off-season.
The lack of reliability is still as important as ever, which cost Maverick during the German Grand Prix, but also in Spain, at Jerez, where he broke his chain on the last lap. Then, there are these blunders, like in qualifying at Le Mans, where the bike was not ready, not even to mention the collision with Pecco Bagnaia during the Le Mans race. Yes, the Spaniard benefits from extenuating circumstances, and its place in the ranking (12th behind Franco Morbidelli at the time of writing) certainly does not reflect its real level. But still.
Maverick Viñales on the decline?
Several elements lead us to believe that there are reasons to be concerned about Maverick Viñales, and we will present them in several distinct points.
- Maverick Viñales is one of the drivers on the grid who falls the least. However, at Assen, he lost control of his Aprilia. It was his first bowl solely linked to an error on his part since the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, then in battle with Marc Márquez. Coupled with the collision with Bagnaia in Sarthe, where he is 50% responsible, that's a lot in just eight races. Yes, this also shows that he is aggressive, and could be a good thing but unfortunately, it does not go through.
- Second point which follows the first, the Sprints exercise does not succeed that much, and even less than Aleix Espargaró, who was thought to be unlikely to perform on Saturday afternoon. In the same vein, Aleix is significantly above Maverick (77 points against 56, better consistency in performance, with a podium everywhere) while he is older, undoubtedly closer to retirement which he plans for the end of 2024. This is worrying, because “Top Gun” is only 28 years old, which remains relatively young in MotoGP. Remember that he is the only one to have beaten Aleix Espargaró over a full season during the 2016 financial year, at Suzuki, which proves that he absolutely must and can get closer to his teammate overall.
- Clearly, Maverick hasn't been making progress for a long time. His career is a bit strange, because he was immediately very good, then only disappointed because we had the start of the 2017 season as a reference. As we predicted, there was no reason for it to be stronger on the Aprilia than on the Yamaha, even for his second year with the Italians.
- Before Le Mans, he had never abandoned two Grands Prix consecutively in his career, a fact which he has just repeated in the last two races. Even if it's not his fault every time, the elements work against him, and when fate turns like this, it's never a good sign. He can always reverse the dynamic at Silverstone, a circuit which corresponds well to the RS-GP as well as his driving style, but he absolutely must be more proactive in racing to exist for many more years in Grands Prix motorcycles.
There remain some reasons for hope, starting with this end of the season. But strangely, we do not see in Maverick Viñales this “X factor” which relaunches a new dynamic when the environment does not work in its favor, which Aleix Espargaró is definitely capable of doing. “Top Gun” suffered the full brunt of Yamaha’s descent into hell from 2017 to 2020, and was not the one we counted on to restart the machine. He does not embody this “pillar” unlike his teammate and compatriot ; in other words, we don't see him making a big leap forward at the end of 2023 even if he can still, thanks to his talent and his natural speed, hope for a podium or a big splash from time to time.
In any case, that's our little prediction, let's hope for his sake that he makes us lie. What do you think ? Tell us in the comments!
Cover photo: Michelin Motorsport