Aprilia hopes to reach a milestone with four identical motorcycles

Year after year, Aprilia changes dimension in MotoGP. Shunned by several drivers in 2019 and 2020, Noale’s brand progressed with Aleix Espargaró, which allowed him to convince a Grand Prix winner in 2021, Maverick Viñales. Three years later, she took advantage of the break between Jorge Martín and Ducati to recruit him and this year, it is as a world champion that the Madrilenian will arrive on the black motorcycle.

This rise in power was accompanied by a strengthening of the program. During its first years in MotoGP, Aprilia relied on Gresini to field its machines. From 2022, the manufacturer had its own structure then the following year, it had for the first time a satellite team, RNF, entrusting it with machines that were one year old. In 2024, the team transformed into Trackhouse and obtained a latest generation motorcycle at the start of the year, before its two drivers benefited from it starting at Silverstone.

A new milestone will be reached in 2025 since the four machines entered will all be in their most recent version, a situation that Ducati will no longer experience with “only” three factory motorcycles. Aprilia intends to take advantage of this from the pre-season tests. “We will have four identical bikes at Sepang”promised Massimo Rivola, the boss of Aprilia Racing, to the official MotoGP website. “Actually, it’s the best way to develop the bike and it’s very, very good to see Trackhouse’s involvement.”

“Working with a team that has so much ambition is very good”added the Italian. “With Davide’s experience [Brivio, team manager de Trackhouse]he always brings a very intelligent point of view. The cooperation is quite close. We hope that by working closer and closer and better and better, we can achieve very good performances.”

The need for better communication

While data sharing is a strength of Ducati, the addition of a satellite team does not appear to have had a particularly noticeable effect on Aprilia’s performance so far. In 2023, the owners of the official team even considered that the RS-GPs entered by RNF brought nothing since they were old models. The situation is set to change this year with four identical motorcycles but Raúl Fernández warns of the need to go further.

The Trackhouse driver is the only one of the four Aprilia representatives to remain in place but he is not the one who feels most integrated into the brand. Often in 2024, he had the impression of lacking information, particularly to prepare the electronic settings before the Grands Prix. “For me, I would like when arriving on the circuits, Aprilia to say ‘we have to start with that’“, Fernández explained. “That’s what I would like.”

“The work of my team is incredible. I talk to my chief engineer almost every day. He works every day but he doesn’t have control over everything. In the end, it’s just my chief engineer and my engineer given, They don’t have all the information from Aprilia, but I believe in it. The situation will change and will be much better.”

“In racing, we work well, but we have to arrive on the circuits with something extra”he summarized. “We need a little more help from Aprilia.”

This help could come from a strong recruit at Aprilia, Fabiano Sterlacchini. The former technical director of KTM arrived at the end of the year to take over from Romano Albesiano, who left to occupy the same position at Honda. Fernández previously worked with Sterlacchini at KTM and he felt “helped a lot” by the engineer at the time. He has already seen the effects of his recruitment by Aprilia.

“In the last two races Fabiano came to see how the project was, to see how the team was. I’m very happy because when I have a problem I try to discuss with him, he comes to us . He’s very clear, it’s very clear in his mind, it’s very direct when you talk with him and I’m happy to work with him. I know he will be a very important person in the Aprilia project. We need to improve our Thursdays and maybe with that. With Fabiano at the head of the project, we will progress quickly and the situation will be better.”

Fernández is particularly counting on keeping the same bike all season, having struggled after switching to the 2024 model mid-year last financial year: “I don’t want to do that again in the next seasons. I would like not to go through that again. It’s really difficult to change bikes during the season. If you change small details, that’s fine, but the bike was totally different. We have to change a lot of things in the driving so it didn’t help us.”

Sterlacchini himself confirmed the desire to no longer fall into this pitfall. “It’s one of the company’s missions to try to better organize work in order to be more efficient”declared the technical director. “We anticipated the moment when the new bike arrived and the fact that it is difficult to arrive here with four bikes, for all four riders, is part of the process.

At Aprilia, all eyes will be on Jorge Martín and his new teammate Marco Bezzecchi, who has also won races in MotoGP, but Raúl Fernández will be the only one to ensure continuity. “I prefer to see it as an opportunity and additional motivation.”commented Rivola regarding the Spaniard’s status.

“We expect a lot from Raúl”he clarified. “I think that in 2024, we already had big expectations but he changed bikes during the season and he didn’t really have confidence on that one. And we must not forget that he missed the test Sepang at the start Overall I think Raúl can perform quite well. We need to give him a good bike.

With Lena Buffa