Until we hear more from Martin at Sepang we have to rely upon what Aprilia riders and engineers told us last season.
According to them, these are the things Aprilia should’ve spent this winter working on: inconsistency (according to circuit layout, asphalt and weather), then horsepower, stopping power and (I hate to sound like a broken record) the relationship between the RS-GP and Michelin’s latest, super-grippy rear slick.
“This year races are 20, 25, 30 seconds faster than they were in 2023,” said Aleix Espargaro last August. “But only Ducati are able to do that because they save more tyre more than us, while we destroy the tyre more. And it’s not just one thing – they have a lot of torque and it’s amazing how easily they stop the bike. We don’t understand why we cannot match them – this is why we are in shock.”
Aprilia’s MotoGP electronics manager Stefano Romeo believes that the RS-GP’s braking issues, which have been around for a while, were exacerbated last season by Michelin’s latest rear.
“We know we have some areas in which we are a bit weak – one is braking and entry, related to the character of the new Michelin rear,” said Romeo. “Last season we struggled to put the bike completely in the right spot – it looks like our window was very narrow.”
Trackhouse Aprilia rider Miguel Oliveira – now at Pramac Yamaha – agreed with Romeo’s assessment.
“The bike is quite tricky,” said the Portuguese rider. “It performs well, but you need to be in the exact good window for that and it doesn’t happen all the time.”
Marco Bezzecchi shows off the latest RS-GP – detailed aero changes include measures to better cool the rider and bike, a big Aprilia issue in recent seasons
Aprilia
Fixing the RS-GP’s issues is the job of new technical director Fabiano Sterlacchini, who comes to Aprilia after many years at Ducati and a few seasons as tech chief at KTM.
“Making the bike more consistent is super-complicated,” he said at the team launch. “I’d probably say that we have to base our work on data, otherwise it’s only opinions.”
Consistency is obviously vital to building a good season-long points scores, but there are other aspects to this issue.
“Also, motivation is an important part of your performance and if you struggle in one race the negative effect of that is brought to the next race,” added Sterlacchini. “Maybe at the next race you’ll have a competitive package, but you are affected but the negativeness, so consistency is an important target.”
Aprilia has been contesting the MotoGP/500cc world championship on and off since the 1994 Spanish GP, where it unleashed its first premier-class grand prix bike, an RSV250 bored out to 410cc. The company won its first MotoGP race in 2022, with Espargaro on board.
Martin is the first rider in more than 30 years to win the MotoGP title and take the number-one plate to a rival brand. The last rider to do so was Eddie Lawson, who won the 1988 title for Yamaha, took the No1 to Honda, won the title again and took the plate back to Yamaha in 1990.