Three races into the 2021 MotoGP championship, it’s fair to say that one pre-season prediction has so far stood the test of time – the newest model of Aprilia RS-GP machine has made a dramatic transformation over winter from also-ran into frontrunning machine.
And with one goal on his mind for the coming races, that has fired up factory rider Aleix Espargaro more than ever before.
“This year we will finish on the podium,” Espargaro insisted to The Race after coming home sixth at last weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix. “100% we will do it. We will not wait until next year now.”
Aprilia’s last podiums in the series came back in 2000, with Jeremy McWilliams at Mugello (pictured above) and Donington Park, back when it was still 500cc and not MotoGP.
Since then, the Italian marque has bounced in and out of the premier class – and in its current guise, since debuting the first version of the RS-GP in 2015, Aprilia is yet to do better than a sixth place finish.
Yet the certainty of a 2021 podium is supported by Espargaro’s efforts so far this year. Finishing every race inside the top 10, he now sits sixth in the championship through not only consistency but also speed – both areas where this iteration of Aprilia has previously struggled.
In fact, so strong has the improvement been this year, Espargaro wasn’t elated by his top-six finish at Portimao last weekend – but was rather left disappointed that he had failed to fulfil what he believes was possible.
“After the warm-up, I was quite sure that I would be able to fight for the podium,” he admitted. “But I had no grip thanks to the track temperature. It was 20ºC more than warm-up, 20ºC more than qualifying, and I [wheel]spun a lot.
“But I’m happy with my overall performance, we’re very fast, and to put an Aprilia in the top six of MotoGP is something important.”
Yet ask him to explain where exactly Aprilia’s additional time has come from, and Espargaro is unable to answer the question – simply because it’s been not a huge leap forward in any one particular area, but rather finetuning all the details needed to perfect the bike introduced in 2020.
Last year’s machine was a radically different bike from the previous season, as Aprilia brought an entirely new engine with the angle of its V4 moved from 72º to 90º. The bike was expected to come into its own from the middle of the season, but COVID and the consequent compressed MotoGP schedule messed up those plans.
Time was needed between races to analyse data and learn the strengths and foibles of the new bike, and that time just wasn’t there in the revised calendar – meaning it took until this winter for Aprilia to find the final missing few tenths needed to close the gap to its rivals.
“The difference between every rider and every machine in MotoGP is smaller and smaller every time,” Espargaro explained. “Last year we were not that bad, and this year we weren’t that bad, but we’re a little bit closer. This year my feeling with the bike is better so my confidence is increasing. It’s a cycle that step by step gets you closer to the top guys.
“Of course the bike is more competitive, because otherwise I would not be able to fight.
“We still have to work in some places though, because if I can use some different lines then I can be more competitive in the race.
“Right now in a group I suffer a lot, but when I’m alone I can run my lines and be one of the strongest riders.”
With the new machine now up to speed, it feels at last like Aprilia has turned a corner and that its first podium – something that will elevate Espargaro to demigod status in the team’s Noale hometown – is finally only just around the corner.
