Maverick Vinales says the Austrian MotoGP highlighted braking issues Aprilia must solve, afte𓆉r struggling to a distant seventh and an "unacceptable" deficit to its rival🔯s.

The Red Bull Ring is one of Aprilia’s weakest circu🐓its as its stop-and-go layout works against the RS-GP’s strengths in high-speed corners.

As has been the case recently, Aprilia showed strong form in the sprin𒉰t, with Aleix Espargaro coming third after Marc Marquez crashed out of second late on.

But in the grand prix, Vinales was 24.322s behind race winner Francesco Bagnaia in seventh,🐭 with Espargaro losing eighth🍷 late on to Franco Morbidelli.

After sounding the alarm bells at the British GP, particularly over tyre degradation, Vinales has identified braking as a ಞkey area for Aprilia to work on.

“We are understanding what we need,” he said.

“Basically, it’s on brakes. I think what we𓄧 understand and what I feel is that we are𓆉 not loading the front tyre well.

“So, we are not taking out the maximum per༒formance of the front tyre.

“Somehow it gives you a bad feeling, espe𝔍cially through the race when everything gets hotter and the pressure goes up. So, it will be important in Aragon to work on that.”

He added: “It was a defensive raඣce. I tried to squeeze out as much as possible. On this circuit, in particular, I struggle with braking.

“It was hard to stop the bike. To be honest, I think it is a good result and I earned impo🦹rtant points anyway.

“There a𒅌re some areas where the bike was very strong and we know that there are things we need to iꦡmprove, like braking.”

Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivo🐭la says the team “collected some important data to analyse” in Austria, but slammed the gap to its rivals.

“We confirme🌜d once again that we are competitive in qualifying and in the sprint race,” he said.

“Unfortunately, yet again💧 in the long race, when the distance increases, tyre degradatioཧn arrives and we lose competitiveness.

“We knew that t✃his was not one of the most favourable tracks for our bike, but we also encountered some excessive temperature issues.

“We certainly collected some important data to analyse in order to impr▨ove. All we can do is keep working, because the gap behind the others in the race is unaccꦏeptable.”