Maverick Vinales insists he has no regrets about leaving Aprilia for KTM in MotoGP, even if Fabiano Sterlacchini’s switch in the opposite direction caught him by surprise.
After becoming the first rider of the MotoGP era to win races with three different manufacturers, Maverick Vinales looked poised to take over as Aprilia’s ‘captain’ – alongside new signing Jorge Martin – after Aleix Espargaro’s retirement
Instead, Vinales made a surprise switch to Tech3 KTM for 2025, prompting Aprilia to sign Marco Bezzecchi as his replacement.
Bezzecchi went on to deliver Aprilia’s best MotoGP season, scoring three grand prix victories, three Sprint wins and finishing third in the championship.
Vinales, meanwhile, took the early initiative at KTM, helping steer the project through the difficult aftermath of a winter financial crisis.
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The Spaniard stunned by putting the RC16 into the race lead in Qatar, only to be stripped of second place by a tyre pressure penalty.
But he’d shown what KTM could do, providing the project with a much-needed morale boost.
Factory star Pedro Acosta later picked up the baton, delivering consistent podiums in the second half of the season to reach fourth in the world championship.
Meanwhile, Vinales’ own campaign was ruined by a shoulder injury at the Sachsenring.
Swapping Aprilia for KTM wasn’t the first big career move Vinales has made, having left Suzuki for Yamaha in 2017, then split from Yamaha in mid-2021.
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“It’s always difficult when it comes to the future,” Vinales told GPone.com.
“When I left Yamaha, I regretted it. It was a large sum of money, but in hindsight, I can say that I was lucky, and now I’m not complaining.
“In sporting terms, it was probably the right decision. I was riding an Aprilia that was improving, and in 2023-2024, I wouldn’t have been as fast with Yamaha as I was with Aprilia.
“I have no regrets about Aprilia, we just went our separate ways.
“It’s true, they had signed with Jorge [Martin], but it wasn’t just that, it was a time when I needed to see something else.”
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However, the news that Sterlacchini would be moving in the opposite direction and taking over as technical director of Aprilia, following Romano Albesiano’s switch to Honda, caught Vinales by surprise.
“There are no regrets, even though when we went to KTM, they still had Sterlacchini, and then he went to them,” Vinales said.
“So we made decisions in advance without knowing what the future would hold. No one told me he would leave.
“Then there were the difficulties last year. KTM didn’t tell us anything. I don’t know if they knew, but we didn’t.
“So we made this choice, looking for a good team. We didn’t know all the moves, but in the end, I don’t regret the decision.”
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Vinales took his first MotoGP win with Suzuki, eight more with Yamaha and one with Aprilia.
His best official KTM result is fourth place, but he left the 2026 season opener without points in Buriram.
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