If you’re only as strong as your weakest link, Aprilia needs to get in the weight room.
The one-off return of former Aprilia stalwart Aleix Espargaro to the grid for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix with Honda only exposes Aprilia’s deficit to MotoGP’s other four manufacturers, a chasm that’s only set to widen with its star signing of the off-season, Jorge Martin, likely months away from a return to racing.
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Martin’s crash in round four of the season in Qatar – his belated 2025 debut after breaking his right hand and right foot in a February testing accident in Malaysia, then his left radius and scaphoid weeks later in a motocross crash in Andorra – saw the luckless Spaniard suffer 11 rib fractures and endure a collapsed lung, with a return to Europe from Doha – let alone a return to the racetrack – the priority for the time being.
As he did when Martin missed the opening three rounds, veteran Italian test rider Lorenzo Savadori, 32, will deputise for the reigning world champion, leaving Aprilia racing with one hand tied behind its back.
For while Savadori is a perfectly competent MotoGP test rider, his race pace when he’s filled in as a wildcard or injury replacement over the past four years has been mediocre, a best result in 19 starts coming in the Netherlands in 2023, where he finished 11th.
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That Espargaro, who decamped to Honda as a test rider after announcing his retirement from MotoGP following 255 starts over 15 seasons – 143 of those and three wins with Aprilia – isn’t still at the Noale factory to pick up the pieces only heightens Aprilia’s predicament.
With every other factory having multiple quality test and reserve riders to call upon – 2022 Moto2 world champion Augusto Fernandez will step in for the injured Miguel Oliveira at Pramac Yamaha for a third consecutive round in Spain – Aprilia’s lack of depth is being exposed, and will continue to be until Martin, their high-priced, high-profile signing, is able to shake off a third major injury in as many months to return.
MARTIN’S BAD LUCK HAS BIG CONSEQUENCES
Martin’s arrival at Aprilia from Ducati – with whom he won the 2024 MotoGP title after being effectively forced out by Marc Marquez elbowing his way into a seat at Ducati’s factory team that Martin coveted – was set to be one of the storylines of 2025, the arrival of the 27-year-old giving MotoGP’s smaller Italian factory the A-list rider it never had to take on the might of the rest of the grid.
What looked set to be a dream marriage turned into a nightmare almost as soon as Martin debuted the number 1 reserved for the world champion at pre-season testing in Malaysia, Martin crashing after just 13 laps to ruin his adaptation to the black bike, and then delaying his season start while crashing when training on a supermoto machine weeks later and breaking his wrist.
Adopting a cautious approach in Qatar while far from fully fit, Martin qualified 14th and finished 16th in the sprint, and was running outside of the points in the main race before he fell and was hit by Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio, the impact leaving him in a Doha hospital for well over a week and facing an arduous journey home, the altitude of commercial flights from Doha to Barcelona and his collapsed lung necessitating a slow return by air ambulance once his medical condition stabilises.
PIT TALK PODCAST: In the latest episode of Pit Talk, hosts Renita Vermeulen and Matt Clayton review Marc Marquez’s victory at the Qatar Grand Prix, discuss the podium finish that wasn’t for Maverick Vinales, what Aprilia do with Jorge Martin sidelined again, and preview this weekend’s Spanish GP at Jerez.
With the next 12 rounds of the series set for Europe until mid-September, quite when Martin will be able to get back in the saddle is unclear, with motorsport.com reporting that doctors who work with MotoGP riders had indicated a three-month recovery after the Spaniard suffered three major injuries in a tick over two months.
Savadori, who last raced full-time in the world championship in 2021 and hasn’t finished a full season since 2010 in the-then 125cc series, scored one solitary point (for 15th in Texas) as Martin’s replacement earlier this season, qualifying dead-last in Thailand, Argentina and Austin.
While Savadori’s typical job description is to work in the shadows on Aprilia’s RS-GP machine and provide the knowledge to bring developments to the racetrack, the Italian is now thrust into a spotlight he didn’t sign up for, and for a long period.
A three-month absence for Martin would have him out until at least round 12 in the Czech Republic, meaning Savadori will likely compete in more 2025 Grands Prix than the man Aprilia threw the chequebook at when he was signed last June.
It’s a big problem at face value, and a bigger one given the rest of Aprilia’s rider corps across its factory team and Trackhouse Racing, its satellite operation.
Like Martin, Marco Bezzecchi was a Ducati refugee when he came across as the Spaniard’s teammate for 2025; Bezzecchi, third in the 2023 championship and winner of three Grands Prix, has been largely underwhelming at his new address so far, sitting seventh in the standings while failing to crack the top five in a single qualifying, sprint or Grand Prix.
At Trackhouse, Japanese rookie Ai Ogura immediately impressed with fifth place on debut in Thailand, the best opening-race result for a debutant since Marc Marquez 12 years earlier. The 2024 Moto2 champion has found the going tougher since, but has 29 points to sit three points and two places behind the vastly more experienced Bezzecchi in the standings.
Ogura’s teammate Raul Fernandez, who pushed Australia’s Remy Gardner all the way to the 2021 Moto2 title in one of the best intermediate-class rookie seasons in memory, still hasn’t translated his promise into premier-class results, the 24-year-old managing just five points across the opening four rounds of his fourth MotoGP campaign.
That Ogura – with four MotoGP starts under his belt – looks to be Aprilia’s best bet shows the reliance on and commitment to Martin, with all of Aprilia’s eggs stacked into the battered Spaniard’s basket.
Since Martin’s latest injury and given his expected long layoff, there has been suggestions that the factory may switch Ogura and Savadori between the factory and satellite teams to allow Savadori to continue his development work in the background at race weekends while temporarily promoting Ogura to assess his progress with greater responsibility, simultaneously benchmarking Bezzecchi’s level given the pair have no previous experience on Aprilia machinery.
It would be a way to determine where each rider stands, but – even if it happens – is an imperfect solution to the bind Aprilia now finds itself in.
WHERE APRILIA FALLS SHORT
A glance at the test rider rosters of the other four MotoGP manufacturers shows that Aprilia is in a unique position of weakness to absorb a long-term injury to one of its primary riders, let alone the reigning world champion in Martin.
By dint of its status as MotoGP’s dominant factory, Ducati – winners of the past 21 Grands Prix since Maverick Vinales was victorious for Aprilia in Austin in April 2024 – isn’t allowed to enter any wildcard riders in races for a second straight season, long-time Italian tester Michele Pirro doing all of his work away from race weekends for the Borgo Panigale brand.
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Pirro, 38, has filled in as an injury replacement rider or wildcard entrant for at least one race for the past 12 seasons since he last competed full-time in 2012, and has kept himself race-sharp by competing in the Italian superbike series.
Yamaha has Grand Prix winners Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso as part of its reserve corps along with Augusto Fernandez, who was going to be entered a wildcard at Jerez this weekend before stepping in as Jack Miller’s teammate for a third straight event at Pramac.
KTM – which went through a tumultuous off-season of financial struggles before righting the ship – has Dani Pedrosa and Pol Espargaro as its test riders, although neither will compete in a Grand Prix this season.
Honda has long-time tester Stefan Bradl and Japanese rider Takaaki Nakagami – who retired from full-time racing last year – working in the background, but added Aleix Espargaro to a manufacturer with Category D concessions that enables it to test extensively in an attempt to drag itself back out of MotoGP’s basement.
Espargaro’s return this weekend for what is the first of a maximum of six wildcard entries this season stings Aprilia as much as it bolsters Honda’s ranks, the 35-year-old joining regulars Joan Mir and Luca Marini with the main factory team, and the Johann Zarco/Somkiat Chantra partnership at satellite team LCR Honda.
Espargaro – nicknamed Aprilia’s ‘Captain’ in his eight seasons with the factory as it went from MotoGP bottom-feeder to race-winner – played a significant role in luring good friend Martin to Aprilia when he was spurned by Ducati last June, and was expected to stay with Aprilia in a testing role until Honda’s persistent pursuit – with a larger role and pay packet – saw him sign with the Japanese brand last July after announcing 2024 would be his final season in a full-time saddle in May.
While Aprilia would have liked to have kept him, Honda needed a rider with Espargaro’s experience – he raced for Ducati, Suzuki and Aprilia in MotoGP – and prioritised his signature.
Months later, technical director Romano Albesiano – at Aprilia for all of Espargaro’s stint – also came across to Honda, the first time the Japanese manufacturer has employed a European in a key technical post after Yamaha did the same with ex-Ducati man Max Bartolini for 2024.
Both Albesiano and Bartolini are protégés of Ducati’s technical wizard Gigi Dall’Igna, the driving force behind MotoGP’s aerodynamic revolution that has changed the appearance of the grid in recent years, and which has underpinned Ducati’s run of three straight world championships with Francesco Bagnaia (2022, 2023) and Martin (2024).
The Jerez race weekend – held before one of MotoGP’s limited number of official test days at the same circuit – is where each factory tends to use one of their wildcard slots for the season, allowing test riders to debut new parts in the heat of battle in races on Saturday and Sunday before the regular riders get to sample them on Monday.
Simply put, Espargaro’s presence this weekend on a Honda will make Aprilia realise even more what they’re missing.
It’s a lament that has been heightened by the absence of the luckless Martin, but one that needs addressing if it’s to fight for second place behind Ducati with fellow European factory KTM, and a Japanese duo of Honda and Yamaha that are stirring after recent barren seasons.
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