MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Marc Márquez' return to victory and the collision between Alex Márquez and Pecco Bagnaia ate up a lot of attention at the Motorland Aragon GP. Understandably so. Márquez winning after 1043 days and leaving the safety of the Repsol Honda factory team for the impoverished Gresini Ducati squad is huge. And the 13 or 16 points Bagnaia lost as a result of the crash could potentially end up making a difference in the championship.

But there was a lot more happening during the MotoGP race at Aragon. Pedro Acosta returned to the podium during a sprint race for the first time since Mugello, and for the first time since Austin in a Sunday grand prix. Though Acosta earned his sprint podium, his Sunday podium was gifted to him when Bagnaia and Márquez crashed out ahead of him.

Yet this podium is significant. It is the result of reverting to a setup with which Acosta had booked so many successes earlier in the season. A disastrous outing at their home GP at the Red Bull Ring had convinced KTM that something needed to be done, and by abandoning the changes which offered potential advantages for a setup they understood and knew would be more consistent allowed Acosta to ride like he wanted to again.

Back to the future

After his podium on Saturday, Acosta had explained where they had made an improvement. "Finding confidence and also riding without mistakes," the Tech3 GASGAS rider told us. "It was many races that we were changing the bike, making many mistakes during the race, going wide, or making over spin. There was always a reason."

Reverting to an older setup had given him tools to work with again, Acosta insisted. "I’m happy because this was the bike that I had when I was learning a MotoGP bike. the bike that I know. Maybe it’s not a bike that was faster than the one I had before, but it’s a bike that is consistent."

A bike that responds consistently is more predictable, so the rider always knows what will happen for each input. That predictability translated into better results, even if it meant sacrificing potential, Acosta explained. "More than the 70% of the time, consistency is better than a fast lap. It’s true there is still a way to improve, to check some areas that are missing in our bike. but it was a good step forward."

Making progress

This was all part of the process for both Acosta and KTM, the Spaniard insisted. "At the end we need to understand that our project is quite young," he told the podium press conference on Sunday. "Sometimes we are trying many things. I was maybe thinking too much. It was a combination of many things. Sometimes it’s better to make a step back to make to the front. We were also coming back to a bike that I know. It’s true that maybe was not the fastest bike, but was more consistent because of this. We need to try in this way, because we see that this is a good way to become competitive again."

Acosta wasn't the only KTM rider to make a step forward. Brad Binder and his team had changed the balance of the bike, and the change had given him more confidence in the front. That had allowed him to be much closer to the front again, and gave him the feeling he could fight. The South African ended the race in fourth, in part because he once again had massive wheelspin off the line as a result of the dirty grid.

That had left Binder stuck behind other riders with his front tire overheating. To compensaate for the front, he had had to use the rear to help turn the bike, and that had caused him to use up the left side of his rear tire. But the South African was still happy, with the sense they had found a direction to chase for setup.

Dire straits

If the KTMs had made a step forward, the Aprilias appeared to have done a reverse marathon. After a strong performance on Friday - second and third for Maverick Viñales and Aleix Espargaro, and all four Aprilias directly through to Q2 - the heavy overnight rain on Friday and Saturday caused their weekend to go completely to pot.

What went wrong was that the grip completely disappeared. From the track, and from the bike, and that affected the Aprilias worse than anyone. Aleix Espargaro went from doing a 1'46.073 on Friday afternoon to a 1'49.914 during the race on Sunday. Maverick Viñales' 1'46.117 on Friday turned into 1'50.925, and a retirement.

By comparison, Jorge Martin did 1'46.379 on Friday, 1'48.359 on Sunday, and that 2-second difference was representative across the board. Some riders were a little less than 2 seconds slower, some a little more. But the Aprilias were pretty much all 4 seconds or more slower than they had been on the first day of the weekend.

Had it been a difficult day, we asked Aleix Espargaro? "No, not difficult. Horrible. It was a nightmare," the Aprilia veteran told us. "Probably the worst race of the last three seasons for everybody in Aprilia."

Where did the grip go?

Espargaro could not believe how badly the bike had responded to the lack of grip. "I never rode a bike like this, but no changes from yesterday. It was difficult to touch with the knee on the floor. The tires didn't work at all, and it was super slippery, and the thing was, I was riding just to avoid a crash. It was a very dangerous race. I was very focused in just trying to avoid a crash instead of trying to be competitive. I couldn't really lean."

Espargaro's opinion was shared unilaterally among the Aprilia riders - with the caveat that Miguel Oliveira had crashed on the opening lap, after going a fraction wide in the last corner. Maverick Viñales told us the bike was sensitive to changing conditions, but Espargaro said he wanted to understand the reason this was so.

"I agree with Maverick, but this is not really an explanation. I want a technical explanation why we can't make a tire work," Espargaro said. Because this was not the first time it had happened. "Argentina two years ago in the wet with cold conditions, in Jerez in the qualifying. When we cannot put temperature and we cannot stress the tires because of the low grip, it's very difficult."

The issue was not grip levels per se, but the fact that in some conditions, the grip of the Aprilia appears to drop off a cliff. "We can have circuits with more or less grip, like Misano or Barcelona, which are different, but when there is something really exceptional like this weekend, it's amazing how difficult it is to ride the bike."

Time to rethink

What is happening here? The way the RS-GP loads the tires appears to be sensitive to grip levels. The bike loads the tires in a specific way, especially by forcing the tires on corner entry and running in fast. That generates load and temperature both front and rear. When grip drops below a certain level, the Aprilia can never enter the corner fast enough to generate the load needed to get temperature in the tires.

This is a fundamental issue, and not one that is easily fixed. It appears to be related to the aero package and the chassis, and replicating that is extremely difficult. Raul Fernandez was worried that the next round was Misano, where the high grip of the track makes all these problems disappear. Finding the conditions to make them reappear again is very difficult, especially given that they don't yet fully understand exactly what those conditions are.

Under the radar

Finally, to a rider who quietly had a very strong race which virtually went unnoticed. Alex Rins started from 21st on the grid at Aragon, but crossed the line in ninth. He won the Japanese Cup with a comfortable margin, and beat the Aprilias and a couple of KTMs as well, passing Jack Miller on the last lap to take ninth.

Rins managed this by riding precisely and carefully, picking up positions while others ahead of him made mistakes. He had tire left at the end of the race where others struggled, matching the lap times of the leaders when he had free track ahead of him on the last two laps. Rins redeemed himself well after a miserable day on Saturday.

This is the reason Yamaha put so much effort into hiring Alex Rins. He is consistent, and strong enough to match Fabio Quartararo on his day. And when Quartararo fails, as he did on Sunday by crashing out on lap 6, Rins is there to pick up the slack.

From Aragon we head to Misano, and a completely different track. A known surface with a lot of grip, where Yamaha and Honda have tested, along with the test teams of the other three factories. Aragon was an anomaly in the 2024 MotoGP season. But an instructive one nonetheless.

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