There’s a lot to be enthusiastic about for Aprilia subsequent season. It has snared one among MotoGP’s present finest in Jorge Martin from out of Ducati’s clutches; has signed a confirmed race winner in Marco Bezzecchi; and gained an thrilling rookie at Trackhouse in Ai Ogura.
However this does create one thing of an issue. Aprilia kicked off the 2024 season in effective kind, with Maverick Vinales successful the Americas Grand Prix.
Since then, nevertheless, it has clearly taken a step again in comparison with chief rival Ducati, with CEO Massimo Rivola admitting lately that his marque is “doing one thing improper” with its RS-GP. It must maintain creating its bike to stay aggressive in 2024 and maintain onto a powerful basis for subsequent yr’s challenger.
However with Vinales heading to KTM, Aleix Espargaro shifting to Honda as a take a look at rider and Miguel Oliveira set to get a manufacturing facility Yamaha at Pramac, Aprilia is in between a rock and a tough place when it comes to how a lot it really needs its present roster to develop earlier than taking secrets and techniques to rivals.
Besides, improvement for 2025 will then be picked up by a steady of riders utterly new to the RS-GP. That’s to not say they received’t be succesful, however with such restricted testing time accessible to riders now, they are going to have little time to familiarize yourself with the RS-GP earlier than the brand new marketing campaign begins in Thailand subsequent February.
Raul Fernandez
The one fixed Aprilia can have in its line-up in 2025 can be Raul Fernandez, who lately signed a brand new two-year deal to stay with Trackhouse Racing past the top of this season.
On paper, Fernandez’s time on the Aprilia hasn’t seen the record-breaking Moto2 rookie from 2021 flourish in the best way he was anticipated to. Scoring 51 factors throughout the whole thing of the 2023 marketing campaign, with a better of fifth on the Valencia GP on the finish of the season, Fernandez is at present sixteenth within the standings after 11 rounds in 2024.
Nevertheless, he has virtually achieved his season tally from final yr with a present haul of 46 factors and managed a sixth on the Catalan GP a day after qualifying on the entrance row and main the dash earlier than crashing.
It’s price stating that he hasn’t had an easy season both, with Fernandez starting the marketing campaign on the 2023 RS-GP earlier than switching to the 2024 chassis from the British GP. However a crash on the opening lap at Silverstone meant he did not get a full grand prix distance on the bike, and mechanical difficulty late on in Austria denied him the prospect to attain factors.
Nevertheless, he’s simply 9 factors behind team-mate Oliveira, having matched his finest grand prix results of the marketing campaign (although the Portuguese rider did handle a dash podium in Germany). By way of qualifying pace, the pair have additionally been fairly evenly matched. Oliveira is successful that battle 6-5, and really that’s not absolutely consultant as a result of Fernandez set the quickest time of the pair in France – however was knocked out in Q1. Over the primary 11 rounds, the typical hole is 0.270s, although on all however three events have the pair been break up by greater than 0.2s.
Fernandez has impressed Trackhouse together with his suggestions and his method to the Aprilia undertaking this yr, and staff proprietor Justin Marks sees the 23-year-old as being very important to the Noale marque going into subsequent yr.
“There’s quite a lot of worth in having veteran presence, particularly in a sport the place all of the OEM’s are creating their bikes and expertise actually issues,” he advised motogp.com. “And I believe Aprilia has a problem forward of us for all 4 bikes subsequent yr, as a result of there’s actually just one rider on the Aprilia who’s received expertise in Raul. However he’s getting increasingly expertise, and he’s constructing his e book of information in understanding the bike.
“We actually like his suggestions and the way he’s understanding the event of the Aprilia bike. I don’t need to name him the veteran, however he’s amassing quite a lot of expertise now. So, going into subsequent yr it will likely be just a few years with the Aprilia bike and he’ll be capable of take all that have and assist develop it. And assist Ogura too. So, I believe it’s break up for us proper now and Raul’s working onerous, so he’ll be anchor for the staff.”
It’s clear Aprilia will look to Martin to guide its cost as a frontrunning pressure in MotoGP over the following few years, however all indicators at present level in direction of Fernandez being arguably its most essential asset in 2025.
Enduring a troublesome debut with Tech3 KTM in 2022 and failing to kick on a lot final yr with RNF Aprilia, Fernandez has quietly impressed with Trackhouse and his new contract is well-earned.
As Aprilia loses what it has lengthy dubbed its ‘captain’ within the type of Espargaro, who has confirmed so very important to the model since he joined it in 2017, it may do loads worse than move the armband over to Fernandez if he continues to construct on the strong foundations which have impressed it and Trackhouse a lot…
