Friday evening at the Emilia Romagna MotoGP saw Aprilia unveil its new €80,000, limited edition, RSV4 X ex3ma.

Described as ‘a true bridge to MotoGP’ the bike is ‘the world’s first and only motorcycle equipped with ground-effect aerodynamics, a groundbreaking solution patented by Aprilia racing and previously exclusive to the RS-GP prototype competing in MotoGP’.

Marking the anniversary of Max Biaggi’s first 250GP world title in 1994, 30 of the 230hp/165kg bikes will be made, all featuring the glossy black ‘Perla Nera’ livery used by Aprilia’s MotoGP team during the sport’s 75th anniversary celebrations at Silverstone.

“Participating in the development of a bike like the RSV4 X ex3ma was like being at the test sessions of a real racing prototype,” Biaggi said. “It’s a bit like pre-season testing, where the technical groundwork for an entire season is laid.

“Similarly, the dedication on the track has been unwavering, seeking to prepare a motorcycle that provides its fortunate riders with the same sensations as a racing prototype.

“And in many respects, this bike truly is, as it marks the first time such a comprehensive setup, including the various parameters introduced by MotoGP aerodynamics, has been developed for passionate customers.

“I’m genuinely pleased with the work we’ve done. The bike is exciting just to look at, and the Perla Nera livery brings a glorious history to life.

“On the track, it was an explosion of emotions – you could feel the downforce from the ground effect fairing in fast corners, a wonderful sensation.”

The fourth and most exotic version of Aprilia’s X range, which began in 2019, the highlight of the ex3ma spec sheet is the ground effect fairing, which exploits air pressure between the ground and bike during cornering to increase grip.

The rest of the aerodynamic package, derived from MotoGP, includes the newly designed front wing, the swingarm wing (or ‘spoon’) and cornering wings on the lower part of the front fender.

The fairing is made entirely of carbon fibre, crafted by PAN Compositi using the same techniques as MotoGP. 

Compared to the previous ‘X Trenta’, it ‘increases vertical air pressure fivefold in a straight line, improving stability and precision while reducing wheelies. In corners, it triples the downforce, significantly enhancing grip.’

“This motorbike represents the most extreme evolution of the programme we initiated to deliver cutting-edge technology directly from our racing division to our customers,” said Aprilia Racing technical director Romano Albesiano.

“The transfer of racing technology to the public is often talked about, but at Aprilia Racing, it is a tangible reality. Our engineers have created something far beyond an evolution of the already exceptional RSV4. This is most evident in the aerodynamics, featuring innovations typically reserved for a MotoGP bike.

“The ex3ma is the first motorbike on general sale with a complete ground effect package, increasing lateral load by three times compared to the previous X model: The stepped fairing and cornering wings are innovations Aprilia first introduced in MotoGP.

“The front wing, a true MotoGP design, is 550 mm wide and generates five times more downforce than the previous X Thirty model, which already surpassed the road version, delivering exceptional acceleration.

“Significant advances lie beneath the surface, starting with the renowned APX racing ECU, which has been extensively upgraded to enhance performance and user-friendliness.

“Many components, both visible and hidden, are new or optimised to reduce weight. This motorcycle is undoubtedly the bike that most closely delivers the riding experience of a modern MotoGP machine.”

The 1099cc, 65° V4 engine delivers its peak 230hp at 13,500 rpm (with a rev limit of 13,900 rpm) and 131Nm of torque at 11,000 rpm.

The ECU incorporates the same operating strategies as the RSV4 race models and includes an integrated data acquisition system.

Aprilia’s APX system enables calibration of wheelie control, power, traction control, and engine braking for each gear. The rider can adjust these parameters on the move, or during bike setup.

A Yashi laptop is provided with the bike to manage the ECU software effectively.

The twin-spar aluminium frame is partnered with Ohlins suspension featuring a custom setup, including a sophisticated pressurised fork. The bike has Brembo brakes and carbon fibre rims.

Each of the 30 bikes will be available for reservation online from September at: Factoryworks.Aprilia.com.

We may have to wait a little longer than we’d like for the 2021 MotoGP World Championship season to kick off following the cancellation of traditional pre-season testing in Malaysia, but that simply whets our apetite more in the wake of a classic 2020 campaign.

With so many race victors and podium winners, there weren’t many – or really ‘any’ – obvious weak links in the 2020 MotoGP field, but that’s not to say there aren’t riders heading into 2021 with something a little more to prove than their peers.

So here are 5 riders that will be working particularly hard to ensure they complete 2021 stronger than they perhaps start it…

 

 

Maverick Vinales

MotoGP’s perennial enigma, if it was frustrating watching Maverick Vinales at times in 2020 (and 2019 and 2018…) then you could tell the weight of almost inexplicably inconsistent form felt heavy on Maverick Vinales’ shoulders too.

Vinales’ wildly varying form wasn’t just consigned to different race weekends; it would occur day-to-day with superb qualifying efforts followed by anonymous race performances. Three pole positions meant he was second only to Fabio Quartararo in terms of qualifying results but one top six result in the final half of the year spoke volumes.

Much will depend on the improvements Yamaha bring to the table, but while Vinales should always be a title contender, you’d hesitate putting money on him.

Moreover,.with Quartararo now joining him in blue for 2021, he now has a bigger job on his hands this year to keep his #1 status in the team.

Pecco Bagnaia

Pecco Bagnaia comes into the 2021 MotoGP season with a huge opportunity after being promoted to the factory Ducati squad alongside Jack Miller, but still with a lot to prove in what will be his third season in the top flight.

The 2018 Moto2 champion may not have been Ducati’s first choice per se for a factory seat but a fresh, young line-up might be just what the doctor – or Gigi Dall’Igna – ordered when it comes to taking the team to the next level. 

However, Bagnaia needs a good year after allowing his flashes of fine form at Misano disappear into either anonymous showings or, worse, DNFs. While his starring role at Misano, during which he should have won a race, was well timed to effectively assure him of the factory seat, five DNFs in the final eight races matched a disappointing formbook from 2019 when he was considered quick but error-prone.

With a revitalised Johann Zarco and young Jorge Martin also waiting in the wings, Bagnaia cannot afford to get it wrong for a third campaign.

Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi heads into 2021 perhaps with more to prove for himself than for anyone else as he ponders whether this will be the final year of his glittering and lengthy career. Many think his mind is already made up but a strong start to the year could convince Rossi to consider taking up the loose option on 2022 if he can make his new ‘underdog’ role at Petronas SRT Yamaha work for him.

Even if this is the ‘farewell tour’ then Rossi stands to have a lot of fun in 2021 with fresh motivation to get one over Maverick Vinales, Fabio Quartararo and – if health and form allow it – maybe even Marc Marquez.

Plus he gets to do it alongside the most successful of his proteges in Franco Morbidelli in what will surely be the most harmonised team atmosphere in the paddock. In short, don’t expect any walls to be erected there any time soon.

Aleix Espargaro

Aleix Espargaro says he cried when he first tested the latest generation Aprilia RS-GP around this time last year… but a few months on those tears had most certainly dried as he continued to trundle around in the mid-field on a bike that is still just an arm’s length from the best.

With Aprilia’s form being exposed further by KTM’s step up in performance, the winter freeze on regulations means it will be difficult for Espargaro to make obvious in-roads but as one of the hardest working riders on the grid, one feels that by now he is the only person capable of wrestling the RS-GP into loftier positions.

Alex Marquez

In just two races Alex Marquez transformed his reputation to be seen as more than simply ‘Marc’s brother’ but it is this year he’ll need to demonstrate against factors that could either work against him or really elevate his career.

Demoted from Repsol to LCR to make way for Pol Espargaro, while Marquez won’t be on a worse bike per se, he has slipped down the Honda hierarchy even before you consider he has gone from a de facto lead rider to become team-mate of actual 2020 team leader Takaaki Nakagami.

While his showings at Le Mans and Aragon were mightily impressive, Alex is still playing some catch up overall and will need to prove he can be quick everywhere, especially in qualifying.

Moreover, we will presumably see Marc back on the grid in 2020 which could motivate him just as much as cast him into the shadows a touch.

That said, if he does come out fighting against all of these factors then Marquez will assure his place on the MotoGP grid for years to come.

Honourable mentions

Naturally, every rider will have something to prove in 2021, from top to bottom.

– Joan Mir will attempt to demonstrate his title win wasn’t a fluke and that he can make the Suzuki work over a single lap to qualify better
– Fabio Quartararo will look to become a more rounded rider having taken over Valentino Rossi’s seat having suffered most from Yamaha’s declining form over the second half of the 2020 season
– Danilo Petrucci’s results faded at Ducati and he comes into a KTM squad on the up, giving him the chance to prove doubters wrong
– Brad Binder showed he can win in MotoGP but now must prove he can make the step to consistent front runner as he attempts to stamp his mark on team leader status at KTM against the ascending Miguel Oliveira

There is a lot to be excited about for Aprilia next season. It has snared one of MotoGP’s current best in Jorge Martin from out of Ducati’s clutches; has signed a proven race winner in Marco Bezzecchi; and gained an exciting rookie at Trackhouse in Ai Ogura.

But this does create something of a problem. Aprilia kicked off the 2024 season in fine form, with Maverick Vinales winning the Americas Grand Prix.

Since then, however, it has clearly taken a step back compared to chief rival Ducati, with CEO Massimo Rivola admitting recently that his marque is “doing something wrong” with its RS-GP. It needs to keep developing its bike to remain competitive in 2024 and hold onto a strong foundation for next year’s challenger.

But with Vinales heading to KTM, Aleix Espargaro moving to Honda as a test rider and Miguel Oliveira set to get a factory Yamaha at Pramac, Aprilia is in between a rock and a hard place in terms of how much it actually wants its current roster to develop before taking secrets to rivals.

To boot, development for 2025 will then be picked up by a stable of riders completely new to the RS-GP. That’s not to say they won’t be capable, but with such limited testing time available to riders now, they will have little time to get to grips with the RS-GP before the new campaign begins in Thailand next February.

The one constant Aprilia will have in its line-up in 2025 will be Raul Fernandez, who recently signed a new two-year deal to remain with Trackhouse Racing beyond the end of this season.

On paper, Fernandez’s time on the Aprilia hasn’t seen the record-breaking Moto2 rookie from 2021 flourish in the way he was expected to. Scoring 51 points across the entirety of the 2023 campaign, with a best of fifth at the Valencia GP at the end of the season, Fernandez is currently 16th in the standings after 11 rounds in 2024.

However, he has almost achieved his season tally from last year with a current haul of 46 points and managed a sixth at the Catalan GP a day after qualifying on the front row and leading the sprint before crashing.

It’s worth pointing out that he hasn’t had a straightforward season either, with Fernandez beginning the campaign on the 2023 RS-GP before switching to the 2024 chassis from the British GP. But a crash on the opening lap at Silverstone meant he didn’t get a full grand prix distance on the bike, and mechanical issue late on in Austria denied him the chance to score points.

However, he is just nine points behind team-mate Oliveira, having matched his best grand prix result of the campaign (though the Portuguese rider did manage a sprint podium in Germany). In terms of qualifying speed, the pair have also been pretty evenly matched. Oliveira is winning that battle 6-5, and actually that’s not fully representative because Fernandez set the fastest time of the pair in France – but was knocked out in Q1. Over the first 11 rounds, the average gap is 0.270s, though on all but three occasions have the pair been split by more than 0.2s.

Fernandez has impressed Trackhouse with his feedback and his approach to the Aprilia project this year, and team owner Justin Marks sees the 23-year-old as being vital to the Noale marque going into next year.

“There’s a lot of value in having veteran presence, especially in a sport where all the OEM’s are developing their bikes and experience really matters,” he told motogp.com. “And I think Aprilia has a challenge ahead of us for all four bikes next year, because there’s really only one rider on the Aprilia who’s got experience in Raul. But he’s getting more and more experience, and he’s building his book of knowledge in understanding the bike.

“We really like his feedback and how he’s understanding the development of the Aprilia bike. I don’t want to call him the veteran, but he is amassing a lot of experience now. So, going into next year it will be a few years with the Aprilia bike and he’ll be able to take all that experience and help develop it. And help Ogura too. So, I think it’s a good split for us right now and Raul’s working hard, so he’ll be a good anchor for the team.”

It’s clear Aprilia will look to Martin to lead its charge as a frontrunning force in MotoGP over the next few years, but all signs currently point towards Fernandez being arguably its most important asset in 2025.

Enduring a tough debut with Tech3 KTM in 2022 and failing to kick on much last year with RNF Aprilia, Fernandez has quietly impressed with Trackhouse and his new contract is well-earned.

As Aprilia loses what it has long dubbed its ‘captain’ in the form of Espargaro, who has proven so vital to the brand since he joined it in 2017, it could do a lot worse than pass the armband over to Fernandez if he continues to build on the solid foundations that have impressed it and Trackhouse so much… 

Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola admits his MotoGP team is “doing something wrong” with its 2024 bike and is willing to risk Q1 appearances to understand its issues in practice.

These comments come after both Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro sounded alarm bells over Aprilia’s performance in last weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Vinales felt Aprilia had “lowered potential” over the first half of the season, as he struggled to 13th in Sunday’s race due to extreme tyre wear while poleman Espargaro could only manage sixth for the same reason.

Speaking to Sky Italy, Rivola noted that the performance of the RS-GP remains strong in sprints, but has clearly lost form in grands prix.

“Since we returned to Europe, there is always an Aprilia on the front row of the grid,” said Rivola, referencing Aprilia’s seven-successive front row starts since the Spanish GP.

“And it [the RS-GP] defends itself quite well in the sprints, but in the long race, from the halfway point onwards, we are not sufficiently competitive.

“There is a performance management issue, related to tyre wear.

“We definitely need to focus on that, maybe even [more than] in weekend planning, even risking having to go through Q1 sometimes.

“We probably need to gather more information on Friday .

“When we go out on track at the start of the grand prix, we are quick straight away, but we tend to [end up suffering] mostly from the tyre issue.

“I think we have more of a set-up, mechanical and electronics [problem].

“And of how we manage the weekend. Maybe we have to try to push the tyre further in terms of wear, look for those details that make the difference.

“We were 40 seconds faster than last year [in the British GP], which is an eternity. But we finished 10 seconds off the winner.

“It’s true that we are only 2.5 seconds behind Pecco Bagnaia , but this is a circuit where Aprilia has always been fast…. We have only shown it in terms of overall performance.

“We are doing something wrong. Or rather, Ducati is doing something particularly well, especially since we went back to racing on European circuits.

“I know they took advantage of the Montmelo test, which is a low-grip circuit, to make a step forward. They did it well.”

Aprilia made a strong start to the 2024 season, with Espargaro third in the Qatar sprint, and Vinales winning the Portugal sprint and doing the double in America.

But since then, Aprilia has managed just five further podium appearances, with all of them coming in the half-distance races.

After 10 rounds, it is 160 points down on Ducati in second in the standings and only 14 clear of KTM.

Almost exactly a year ago, Aprilia raised eyebrows when Lorenzo Savadori was spotted at a private Misano test using a carbon fibre chassis on the factory’s RS-GP MotoGP machine.

It soon turned out that Aprilia was not alone in creating a composite frame – not used in MotoGP since Ducati from 2009-2011 – with KTM wild-card Dani Pedrosa appearing with a carbon fibre chassis a few weeks later at the San Marino round.

The Spaniard took the carbon fibre to the brink of a podium, before KTM’s factory race riders also gave it a thumbs up in the Monday test, where Aprilia’s race riders also tried their carbon fibre frame. It was seen again at the Valencia post-season test.

But while KTM switched all its race riders to carbon fibre for 2024, Aprilia’s latest RS-GP retains a conventional aluminium design.

“It’s still under development,” Marco de Luca, Head of Vehicle Department at Aprilia Racing told Crash.net when asked about the status of the factory’s carbon fibre project. “We are still thinking about it. But at the moment we prefer not to put it on the track for races.”

Although unwilling to go into details, de Luca suggested that exchanging aluminium for carbon fibre on the RS-GP is perhaps more complex than the steel trellis swap at KTM.

“KTM have a different design of the frame. A different concept and philosophy. Maybe our design, which is [unique] to our bike is – I don’t want to say somehow more complex to ‘carbonise’ – but it is not a case of ‘what you do in aluminium, you do tomorrow in carbon fibre’.

“It’s a completely different animal. This can be positive from the technical point of view, but it’s not something which we are ready to deploy at the moment.”

Pressed on the advantages of carbon fibre, de Luca replied:

“The obvious one is weight, but it’s not just this. There are some other technical challenges and positive things we see. But also some difficulties in delivering something which is repeatable [to manufacture].

“Because you need to produce lots of frames and they need to be equal, one to the other, at less than 1%.  It’s [carbon fibre] a little bit more delicate as a technology. So we need to study a little bit more.”

de Luca confirmed that by the time a carbon fibre frame is seen in public, it has undergone at least a year of development behind the scenes.

“This is something you start at least 12 months before. If not more,” he said. “Especially if it’s something you are doing for the first time, like when we migrated from the aluminium swingarm to the carbon fibre.

“For Aprilia, it was a second attempt. The first they tested, they tried and they didn’t arrive at the end. Then we started again the project and after one year we arrived at the track with something that even now we are still evolving.

“We are always evolving the structure, the concept, the design – even for something that you might think is now quite normal. There is still a continuous project of development for the weight, the stiffness, durability, material.

“It’s very complex technology.”

2027 MotoGP rules: Fuel reduction ‘cheaper option’, GPS ‘better for the spectacle’

Quizzed on the range of performance-limiting changes to the technical rules for 2027, including a switch from 1,000 to 850cc engines, de Luca – who was involved in the discussions – said:

“For sure, we needed to something to mitigate a little bit of performance.

“Aprilia was not completely convinced about the change of engine [capacity].

“Like some of my colleagues, we were convinced that we could have something cheaper and arrive more or less at a similar result.”

Pressed on how the present engines could have had their performance substantially clipped, reducing fuel capacity was high on the list of options.

“You can reduce the energy [although] then maybe you have some headache about qualifying [spec] versus race [spec],” he said.

In terms of aerodynamics, an area of speciality for de Luca while working in Formula One, he warned:

“I’ve done this for years and years in Formula One: Any new regulation is just
an interruption of the development, and then you continue.”

But while he predicts it will only take “maybe a year and a half or two years” to recover the downforce lost from smaller front fairing dimensions, he stressed that the design goalposts will have been moved:

“The characteristics of the aerodynamics should be different because I don’t think it makes too much sense to have exactly the same numbers as today with less power. 

“So you need to work out a balance… but you need a lot of development to do that. So money spent, time spent!”

Crucially for Aprilia, which has led the MotoGP world in ‘ground effect’ – squeezing (and accelerating) the air trapped between the side of the bike and track to create downforce at high lean angles – there will be no new restrictions on side-fairing design.

“Well, it was not easy to maintain this, believe me,” de Luca admitted, hinting at Aprilia fighting its corner to retain the freedom to shape the sides of the bike.

“But at the end, [ground effect] is something that if you see the other bikes, now more or less they use the same concept.

“It’s interesting to see that there are some [different] interpretations of this. Some closer to us and some not so close… Interesting.”

Turning to the future sharing of GPS data between teams, de Luca acknowledged that it’ll provide easier access to data that factories currently compile by more complicated means such as video analysis.

“We all have our, let’s say, very complex reconstruction [methods] of what the others are doing and with GPS everything is public. So it’s the easiest way to do exactly what we do now but more precise and cheaper,” he said.

“I think it’s better for the spectacle because at the end [if a manufacturer is behind] you can catch up more quickly, so the competition can be even more balanced.

“[Currently] we look at different parts of the circuit, different riders. We try to reconstruct. Everybody does it…”

Following rumours that Marc Marquez has snatched the 2025 factory Ducati seat away from title leader Jorge Martin, Aprilia has officially announced that Martin will replace the retiring Aleix Espargaro next season!

The news completes a dramatic weekend for Martin, who was rumoured to have been picked as Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati team-mate on the eve of the event -only for Ducati to be blindsided when Marquez rejected the option of a move from Gresini to Pramac.

Fearing they could lose the eight-time world champion altogether, Ducati looks to have performed a U-turn – picking Marquez to take over from Enea Bastianini.

Since Martin had made clear he would not remain as a satellite rider, that effectively sent Martin out of Ducati and into the arms of Aprilia. 

The announcement, issued via a short social media video also featuring Espargaro, hints at the sudden, last-minute nature of the Martin-Aprilia deal.

The young Spaniard currently leads reigning double champion Bagnaia by 18 points and, if he holds on to make history as the first satellite MotoGP champion, could now take the #1 plate to Aprilia next season.

Martin’s move all but confirms that Marc Marquez will be an official Ducati rider in 2025, returning the #93 to the full factory status he enjoyed at Repsol Honda, after impressing during his opening seven appearances on a year-old Gresini GP23.

With three wins for Maverick Vinales in the last four MotoGP races, including a perfect double last time at COTA, there’s no doubt that Aprilia is on a formidable roll.

But rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Pedro Acosta felt Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola’s claim that the RS-GP is now the best bike on the grid needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

“He needs to say that! I mean, he’s working there!” smiled rookie star Acosta, second to Vinales last time out at COTA. “I can say the same about GASGAS!”

Bagnaia added: “Look at his [Rivola’s] T-shirt! ‘Aprilia’. Ask Gigi and he will answer Ducati is the best.”

Nonetheless, Bagnaia was quick to credit Aprilia for improving the RS-GP this season.

“In any case, [looking] from behind, it looks that they found a good balance. Not great speed on the straight, but a lot of grip and stability,” Bagnaia said.

Despite Vinales and Aprilia winning half of the six races so far this season, Ducati riders Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini lead the world championship standings (ahead of Vinales) heading into round four at Jerez this weekend.

Ducati also leads the constructors’ standings, followed by KTM, with Aprilia in third.

A tip for Aprilia’s rider market movement was made on the Crash MotoGP podcast.

Aprilia missed out on Fabio Quartararo who has penned a big-money deal to stay at Yamaha.

The Italian manufacturer reportedly failed with a € 4m-per-yer offer to snare Quartararo.

“That [the size of the offer] tells you that Aprilia were not going all-out for Quartararo,” Crash’s Peter McLaren said on our podcast.

“So they are either happy with who they’ve got, or they’ve got someone else in mind.

“It doesn’t sound like a ‘we are going all-out to get this guy’ kind of a pay packet.

“That tells you that they have got something else they are working on, maybe. Time will tell.”

Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales make up the Aprilia duo, with Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez at Trackhouse.

All four riders are out-of-contract at the end of this year, leaving Aprilia with big decisions to make.

“They have said publicly the same as KTM, that ‘we want to keep the riders that we’ve got now’,” McLaren reported.

“That’s in an ideal world. And assumes that all of the riders are performing well.

“[Massimo Rivola] goes on to say, in preseason at Sepang, that he has to be ready to react.

“‘If someone takes one of our riders, I have to be ready to go to the market, know what’s going on, and get someone else in’.

“So they are hedging their bets.

“He made it clear, why he wants to keep four riders, is the stability.

“Changing a rider means changing the crew chief, sometimes the mechanics.

“You usually only see a factory team change one rider at a time.

“If we follow that logic, Aprilia will want to keep at least one rider.

“That fits with the names that are already signed. Bagnaia, Quartararo…”

Is Enea Bastianini suited to Aprilia?

“The second rider? It depends how they are performing,” McLaren reported.

“Aleix did fantastically in Qatar, apart from the race result. Speed-wise he impressed.

“Then Vinales did great in Portimao.

“What will happen this time? Will Miguel Oliveira pop up?

“They have got a lot of options at Aprilia.

“Enea Bastianini – the Italian rider. It’s good to raise his name. The one thing they haven’t got in Aprilia is an Italian rider.

“Look at Ducati. When was the last time they didn’t have an Italian rider? They’ve always had one Italian in the factory team.

“It would be good for [Aprilia]. It may even help sponsorship, who knows.

“If you are Bastianini, we don’t know what will happen with this ride.

“How safe is his position in the factory team against guys like Martin, Marquez, Bezz potentially?

“Then what is the pull factor from Aprilia? “How much do Aprilia want another rider compared to the guys they’ve got?”

Crash journalist Robert Jones added: “We all expected Jorge Martin to be the first domino to fall.

“But, now that it’s Quartararo, that actually has a big impact on Martin potentially staying with Ducati.

“It opens the door, if Bastianini’s place is in question at the factory team…

“The ties of him being Italian. And Aleix retiring which gets closer with every season.

“There are a lot of legs to Bastianini moving to Aprilia if he feels that his seat is in danger.”

The Aprilia MotoGP CEO believes the current dynamics of the WorldSBK class don’t fit with what Aprilia wants to do.

The Italian brand is wanted in WorldSBK by series organiser Dorna, but it doesn’t have a motorcycle that meets the criteria, as of now.

In terms of the MotoGP class, making bikes slower has been a prominent topic of discussion over the last few seasons, as the bikes are sometimes hitting the type of top speeds that are considered very dangerous. 

Superbikes are not as fast as MotoGP, but developments in the series will always tend to follow that of MotoGP, however, Rivola began his argument against Aprilia joining the Superbike class by delving into the top speed discussion.

Speaking to Speedweek, Rivola said: “In my opinion, making the MotoGP bikes too slow isn’t very smart either. My first argument was that we can’t be slower than the superbikes.”

“We also need a price cap for the series machines because it is ridiculous to allow 45,000 euro bikes to compete against 25,000 euro bikes.

“We are not interested in the Superbike World Championship because at the moment it looks like a MotoGP B championship. If they make fair rules, then I’m happy to be there too.”

Those comments were directed in large part at Ducati, who are leading the way in terms of development, but also the price range for modern Superbike machinery.

Japanese brands don’t tend to sell their bikes for the same price and thus Ducati could be seen as having an advantage. 

Rivola then admitted a change of rules for superbikes should be made: “The only future I see for Superbikes is Superstock rules.

“They should keep the same cool name, but just unscrew the indicators and rearview mirror and then race. 

“That’s the message that every manufacturer wants to convey because then they can sell the motorcycles.”

Alex Rins to end Yamaha’s winless streak?

Alex Rins’ Yamaha move means he is now in contention to become the first rider of the MotoGP era to win races on three different brands of bike. Might he repeat last year’s LCR Honda heroics at the unique COTA circuit and snatch a debut Yamaha victory at round four?

Luca Marini to be top Honda?

Honda may have lost Marc Marquez, but it will still have two proven MotoGP race winners in former world champion Joan Mir and new LCR signing Johann Zarco. But could Mir’s new Repsol team-mate Luca Marini, the fastest Honda rider on his debut at the Valencia test, cause an upset?

Aprilia to deliver a title challenge?

Nobody will be too surpised if KTM takes the fight to Ducati this season, but Maverick Vinales finished 2023 believing he’d finally found a set-up that can make the Aprilia work on a variety of tracks. If Aprilia, which won two GPs and a Sprint last season, can indeed turn the RS-GP into a more consistent challenger, could it repeat 2022 and fight for the title?

Some young satellite Ducati stars will leave?

Assuming reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia re-signs, there is only one factory Ducati seat still available for 2025.

If Enea Bastianini revives his Gresini form he might well keep it but the Italian is sure to face pressure from a long list of satellite Ducati stars, such as reigning title runner-up Jorge Martin, multiple race winner Marco Bezzecchi or six time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez (see below).

Those that miss out on the official Ducati ride are likely to become a prime target for other manufacturers…

Marc Marquez to stay at Gresini in 2025?

…That said, if current bookies title favourite Marc Marquez is rejuvenated by the family atmosphere alongside his brother at the satellite Gresini team, perhaps he won’t be in any rush to return to the high-pressure grind of factory status in 2025.