For years, Aleix Espargaró has been longing for a satellite team for Aprilia, where he arrived in 2017 to lead a project starting from a blank page and which, six years later, has become the winner. That plea from the Spanish rider came true this Friday in the Mugello paddock, where the Italian Grand Prix is held this weekend and where the RNF Racing team announced the end of its association with Yamaha and that from 2023 it will compete with two Aprilia motorcycles.
“This news is very important, I don’t know why, but it makes me especially excited. In 2019, Razlan’s team (Razali, owner of the RNF) won five or six races with Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo, if in At that moment, they would have been told to leave Yamaha to take Aprilia, they would have said not to be crazy, and now they are leaving a motorcycle that last year was the world champion for our motorcycles, so we will have done something right and it makes me feel brutal” , explained Aleix Espargaró this Friday at the end of the training day, in which, precisely, he was the fastest rider of the day.
The news came just the day after it was confirmed that Aprilia had renewed its two riders, Maverick Viñales and Aleix himself, for two seasons, showing that they have full confidence in the rider from Granollers, who will turn 33 at the end of July and will continue in Noale’s house until after he was 35, at least, leading the development of a bike that has gone from being the last in line to becoming, right now, one of the strongest on the grid.
Now, with the satellite team confirmed for 2023, Aprilia will have to, together with the RNF, look for two riders to complete next year’s line-up. ‘El capitano’, as Aleix is called in the box, will surely be consulted about it.
“More than giving a name, and I have already discussed this with Massimo (Rivola, the CEO of the Aprilia team), it is that it was a junior team, that has to be a training team, because of Aprilia’s DNA, because of the teams that has in the official line-up, it has to be a team where young riders are trained, with good material, because they are going to have good bikes, but without the pressure of being in the factory box. That is what I would like”.
However, the situation in the rider market, with the departure of Suzuki at the end of the season, has completely changed.
“That’s right, with this situation there are going to be pilots with more experience available, perhaps they will have to find a bit of a mix between a pilot with more experience and a younger one. I will only tell you that, among the young pilots, not only now, which in fact is costing him a bit, I have always liked Raúl a lot”, Espargaró suggested in reference to Raúl Fernández, who made his debut this year in the premier class with Tech3-KTM.
The one who would also enter into that relationship of combining a youngster with another more veteran runner could be Alex Rins, without a team right now for 2023.
“I think it would be good if Razlan had a junior team, but you don’t have to be stupid. The market is as it is, there are many options, Rins is a rider with enormous talent and in the same way that I played it by telling Rivola to bring Maverick, I think I would risk it with Rins, because he is very good. He would be a very good signing for Aprilia, without a doubt he would be a rider who could help us a lot in the development of the bike”, he concluded.
