Maverick Viñales will race for Aprilia for the remainder of the 2021 MotoGP season.
On Wednesday, Aprilia announced that the Spaniard would be racing the bike in the Gresini Aprilia team alongside Aleix Espargaro starting from the next race at the Motorland Aragon circuit.
It has been a busy day at the Misano circuit. At a private test organized by Ducati, Maverick Viñales got his first taste of the Aprilia RS-GP, Franco Morbidelli rode a superbike again for the first time, and factory test riders carried on with the work of testing developments on the MotoGP machines.
The fallout from Maverick Viñales’ precipitate departure from the Monster Energy Yamaha team continues to reshape 2022, and perhaps even 2021.
First, Aprilia announced on the Monday after Austria that Viñales would be racing for them alongside Aleix Espargaro in 2022.
Then, at the end of that week, Yamaha announced they would be terminating their contract with Viñales with immediate effect.
The rocky relationship between Maverick Viñales and Yamaha has come to an early end.
The Japanese factory announced today that they would be releasing Viñales from his contract effective immediately. Viñales is now free to start work with Aprilia, in theory at least.
Episode 72 of the Brap Talk motorcycle podcast is out with another “weekly” episode, for your two-wheeled listening pleasure.
In this episode, we tackle a slew of motorcycle-related topics, and some topics that aren’t so motorcycle related (naturally).
From day one, Aprilia has been coy about the Tuareg 660. While we knew from the get-go that the Aprilia’s 660cc parallel-twin motor would foster a whole range of motorcycles, our introduction to the Tuareg 660 started with obfuscation.
Our first glimpse of the Aprilia Tuareg 660 was behind a glass box full of fake plants, at the 2019 EICMA show, and while we could glean some info from that display, much about the new middleweight ADV bike remained a mystery.
Now it seems, Aprilia is willing to speak more about its latest creation – though there is still much we don’t know.
Confirming the news we posted two weeks ago, Aprilia’s recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has finally been published on the government’s website.
In it, the recall states that 308 models in the USA from its 660 lineup (59 in the hands of customers) could have faulty connecting rods in their parallel-twin engine.
Episode 69 of the Brap Talk motorcycle podcast is out with another “weekly” episode, for your two-wheeled listening pleasure.
In this episode, we tackle a slew of motorcycle-related topics, and some topics that aren’t so motorcycle related.
Certain owners of the Aprilia RS 660 and the Aprilia Tuono 660 should expect a notification soon that their motorcycles are up for recall, which will see the Italian brand swapping out their engines for new ones.
In total, less than 100 motorcycles will be affected by the recall when it comes out, with Aprilia targeting certain VIN ranges for the two models of motorcycle with the 660cc parallel-twin engine.
With the news coming out on Saturday, talk of Maverick Viñales leaving the Yamaha camp was rampant in the MotoGP paddock.
Tipped widely to be headed to the Aprilia Racing garage for the 2022 season, Viñales’ woes on the Japanese squad have reached a zenith in their difficulties, shown clearly at the Sachsenring round last weekend.
The Spaniard’s experience on the Yamaha YZR-M1 has been mercurial, however, also shown clearly by this weekend’s result at Assen.
Nonetheless, following Maverick Viñales‘ request, Yamaha has agreed to put an early end to their current two-year contract.
Today, the Gresini Racing Team announced that their immediate future lies with Ducati.
The Italian team, now run by Nadia Padovani, the widow of team’s founder Fausto Gresini, will lease Ducati Desmosedici machines from the Bologna factory for the 2022 and 2023 MotoGP seasons.