MotoGP’s latest workforce Trackhouse Aprilia has taken simply half a 12 months to shake up the rider market and buck paddock conference, by snapping up a rider not many would have anticipated to be on its radar only a handful of months earlier.
As an alternative of settling for line-up continuity or discovering an equally skilled substitute to Miguel Oliveira, the Justin Marks-owned, Davide Brivio-headed American outfit has gone for a rookie signing – however ignored the clamour to select up American Joe Roberts in favour of snatching Ai Ogura from below the noses of his long-time backer Honda.
It’s a genuinely daring transfer, one that ought to have ramifications down the road for events past simply the figures concerned.
Right here is our tackle the winners and losers from the newest MotoGP foolish season bombshell.
Winner: Trackhouse
You’ll be a courageous particular person proper now to assert with any certainty Ogura is an improve on Oliveira even within the medium-term – the Portuguese is a five-time MotoGP race winner in any case – however Ogura is a helpful injection of latest blood.
Trackhouse most likely will not have been finest served by retaining the identical line-up going ahead, and having a rookie on board will relieve a number of the calls for that may have come from Oliveira’s pedigree and a number of the strain that got here from his boisterous fanbase.
Ogura’s credentials in grand prix racing up to now are robust. He isn’t just the perfect Japanese paddock common in a very long time, however a rider who was firmly in competition for titles in each his second season of Moto3 and his second season in Moto2. He misplaced each of these titles, Moto2 in a genuinely humiliating trend, however the physique of labor total is there.
And it’s a assertion of intent, too, from Trackhouse to have the ability to lure away a rider who has up to now been synonymous with Honda in his profession. For all the present travails of the Honda RC213V, that is a mighty highly effective foe to defeat on the rider market.
Loser: Honda
For the longest time, Ogura has been Honda’s appointed successor to Nakagami, set to be the racer, who would take over that Idemitsu-backed LCR seat ultimately.
Given the present state of the bike, Honda ought to by now be effectively used to going through embarrassment, but this newest one ought to sting just a bit bit greater than the others given the cash that it is invested in build up Ogura.
It received’t be the wake-up name that Honda has lengthy wanted – if that didn’t include Marc Marquez’s departure, it by no means will. However it may assist make the Japanese large bosses realise simply how deep the rot goes.
Winner: Ai Ogura
Ogura is taking an enormous punt on a comparatively unproven workforce, and forfeiting a manufacturing facility contract within the course of (Trackhouse riders are signed on to the workforce in 2025, whereas at LCR Honda he may have absolutely had a works deal).
However the RC213V is simply not the bike to be on proper now, and tying your wagon to Honda on your first steps within the premier class is a path fraught with peril. If Ogura did not really feel that manner, he would have debuted as an LCR Honda rider two years in the past already.
Now he’s in possession of a two-year deal on a aggressive bike towards a team-mate that Ogura will see as beatable. It may very well be simply the precise path to launch him into MotoGP superstardom – and if Honda is again to the entrance quickly sufficient, that specific bridge can most likely be rebuilt given Ogura stays the perfect Japanese prospect round by a wholesome margin.
It is usually, as Takaaki Nakagami put it, a pleasant end result for the state of the Japanese rider improvement pipeline – a rider from there getting a MotoGP call-up not due to any Idemitsu-related motive however as a result of a European workforce with no prior connection to Ogura has seen him as ok towards very credible opposition.
Loser: Joe Roberts
The obvious loser to the deal is Roberts, who many had presumed was preordained to take the second Trackhouse seat given each his nationality and his fairly spectacular begin to the 2024 season within the middleweight class.
However, anybody who’s been being attentive to the workforce since Trackhouse’s arrival in MotoGP must be conscious that their precedence is success, not flying the flag – and regardless of Roberts’ best-ever begin to a grand prix season in 2024, he’s additionally been one thing of a hit and miss character for his 120 races in Moto2.
Trackhouse would quite put money into rising US expertise at a grassroots degree and permit the success to observe naturally, provided that that technique stands to pay out higher in the long term – nevertheless it means the clearest path for Roberts to make his MotoGP dream come true shouldn’t be coming off.
Winner: Raul Fernandez
Ogura won’t be a straightforward team-mate, and a poor displaying towards him might effectively finish Fernandez’s MotoGP profession down the road. It’s one factor to run there or thereabout with Oliveira given an expertise deficit – however repeating the identical outcomes towards a rookie can be ruinous.
However the truth Trackhouse has gone for a rookie as Fernandez’s team-mate, and provided each of them two-year-deals, reveals that each Trackhouse and its producer accomplice Aprilia imply it once they discuss their pleasure over Fernandez’s still-untapped potential.
There may be safety right here for the Spaniard, ap expectation to guide but additionally the assumption that he can, and a workforce that might be tailor-made round him.
It might work out very well. Until Ogura seems a little bit too robust.
Loser: Trackhouse (from a PR standpoint)
Clearly signing a Moto2 frontrunner who everybody expects to adapt effectively to MotoGP is a brilliant transfer for a workforce searching for outcomes – however there’s one facet to this new deal which may work much less effectively for the opposite aspect of Trackhouse’s mission in bike racing.
A workforce that’s all about content material creation and digital media storytelling, it would discover that that’s one thing that’s significantly more durable to do with the notoriously media-shy Ogura as its new signing.
Actually, he’s not going to be the straightforward promote to the US fanbase {that a} character just like the also-available Jack Miller would have been, given the Australian’s repute for outspokenness. Perhaps Trackhouse has bought a diamond within the tough with Ogura, nevertheless it may very well be that the advertising and marketing workforce’s job has change into barely more durable.
