Espargaro steps in for Silverstone amid Vinales intrigue
KTM has announced Pol Espargaro will replace Maverick Vinales this upcoming MotoGP weekend at Silverstone.
The news comes against the backdrop of a report that KTM was looking to bench Vinales, who is now effectively certain to leave the KTM set-up at the end of the year, before the season was out - due to a lack of results and a deteriorated relationship between the rider and the factory.
But Vinales ardently disputed this on social media, instead hinting that any kind of absence would be on purely medical grounds - and that he had every intention to see out his contract and return to racing in MotoGP 2026 if his body allows him to.
Vinales had already admitted before the summer break that, despite all the time that had passed since his initial injury in 2025 and the mixed signals he's given (and himself received) since over his condition, his recovery had stalled out.
As part of KTM's latest announcement, he said: "During the summer break, we kept looking for the reason why I wasn't getting the strength back in external rotation in my left arm, while the internal rotation had a significant improvement over the last few months.
"Further medical tests showed that, although my supraspinatus has fully healed, I also have a small tear in the infraspinatus that we didn't realise until last week. We're now working on the best recovery plan."
Both the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus are muscles in the shoulder blade area, the latter being the bigger of the two.
Vinales said he "doesn't know how long" the recovery will take. Tech3 team manager Nico Goyon was quoted as saying: "It's obviously not the news we wanted to be announcing after the summer break, and the whole team feel very sad for Maverick.
"We wish Maverick a speedy recovery and hope to see him back on the bike at the next race in Aragon [August 28-30]."
In the meantime, however, test rider Espargaro will be called up to race at Silverstone - having acquitted himself excellently in his appearances as stand-in for Vinales last year.
Espargaro has focused on KTM's 850cc 2027 prototype this year - and even suffered an injury in testing that stopped him from racing in lieu of Vinales at Le Mans.
"I have mixed feelings about this," he said. "On one hand, I feel sad, it's never nice to jump on the bike in this situation, when a rider is injured and can't race, especially when it's Maverick. That's a real shame. On the other hand, racing is in my blood. I've been racing all my life, and I miss it so much, so this is a great opportunity for me too."
