Viñales Confirmed To Ride For Aprilia In 2022

Calum Gill 11:31 16/08/2021

Maverick Viñales has finally been confirmed as joining Aprilia’s MotoGP team for the 2022 season. 

The successful transfer to the Italian manufacturer was announced in a team statement on Monday morning, six weeks after it first emerged that Viñales was heading to the team. It means that he will replace Lorenzo Savadori for 2022, after breaking his two-year Yamaha deal a year early.

Team boss Massimo Rivola said Viñales was exactly what Aprilia needed for its continued progress towards the front in MotoGP. “We are extremely happy to announce that we have signed Maverick Viñales, a very high-level rider and one of the purest talents in the premier category,” said Rivola. “Our project has now been enriched with the value that Maverick brings - a world champion who has confirmed his talent as a top rider in MotoGP - at a time of great change, after bringing a completely revamped bike to the track and having consistently established ourselves in the group of protagonists, we are also facing a switch in status as a factory team now, in order to take Aprilia to success. We are honoured to be able to make all of our best skills available to Viñales along with our enthusiasm and our passion. I am confident that, like Aleix, he will embrace this extremely high-potential project.”

Viñales will join Aprilia on a one-year deal for next year, a sensible option for the team as it looks to keep its options open by keeping its riders on the same cycle of contracts as the rest of MotoGP’s frontrunners. Viñales has been linked to Aprilia since officially parting ways with Yamaha after the Dutch TT in June, but the weeks went on without any official confirmation, in part due to the turmoil surrounding his departure from Yamaha after four and a half seasons of mixed results.

He was suspended from this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix last Thursday after being accused by the team of attempting to deliberately blow up the bike’s engine, in what he admitted was a moment of anger and frustration as he issued an apology for his actions over the weekend. The news of Viñales’ move to Aprilia was originally set to be announced on the day his suspension was revealed so was delayed until this morning.