Maverick Viñales to leave Aprilia at the end of the MotoGP season, moving to KTM Tech3. The rider has already proven capable of winning with the RS-GP, with victories in the Sprint race at the Portuguese GP and the main race at the GP of the Americas.
In an interview with the official championship site, the Spaniard stated that he considers his goal achieved: ‘I think with the victories I closed the circle, so my objective in Aprilia it’s done. So I feel totally free to go away’.
The decision to switch teams also came from Viñales feeling that something was missing to consistently stand out: ‘I feel always that there is something, which I could not shine like I shined in Austin and I need to find that. This is my motivation. So basically my move was based on that’.
And the #12 admitted that he never understood why he couldn’t regularly be at the top with Aprilia, despite improvements and having already achieved a win:
– I could not understand why I took so long to do that in Aprilia, because in 2022 the bike was very good, Aleix [Espargaró] did a great season. I was not able to do it and I don’t know why. Then in 2023 we incorporated [José] Manuel [Cazeaux, crew chief] in the team and we found some things in the set-up that were going against my riding style and I was suffering a lot. As soon as we changed that, we started to do good results, but I was always wondering why I cannot put everything together. It came in Austin, but still I think I can do more.