The honeymoon period between reigning MotoGP champion Jorge Martin and his new team Aprilia suggests the odds of his signing ending up more than a two-year rental are stronger than they seemed at first.
While Aprilia must take a giant competitive leap still to live up to Martin's frontrunning aspirations, nothing in the 26-year-old's conduct has suggested any kind of buyer's remorse over voluntarily leaving the best bike on the grid - the Ducati Desmosedici - to gamble on Aprilia's RS-GP.
Clearly still riding the high of coming out on top in 2024 yet also buoyed by his new surroundings, Martin said of being an Aprilia rider: "It's great, it's so, so good. Everybody wants to be valued.
"So when I arrived in the factory and I see all the people were so emotional with me and Marco [Bezzecchi] also, I think both of us, arriving there, it was crazy. I feel already the love from the factory to us, I also feel already like it's my family. I would kill for them.
"This is so, so important. I never felt this before in my life, in a factory. Like, in other brands that I rode for. I'm so, so happy and I think it's a big motivation for all of us."
Aprilia once didn't have the best reputation as a particularly friendly place for riders to work in, but this by and large turned around with the arrival of its racing CEO Massimo Rivola.
But if it's succeeding in making Martin feel like he's getting more than he's bargained for, that feeling seems to be reciprocated.
"He's already a leader. And he wants to be a leader, and he understands that being the world champion he's our leader," said Rivola of Martin.
"In a way it's surprising, the attitude he has so far. And then we will see [if everything's still good] when we have, let's say, tough times.
"But his approach is the approach of someone who fought a lot and worked a lot to be in his position. I think he knows that he cannot waste all of that in the blink of an eye."
Aprilia's new tech leader Fabiano Sterlacchini went a step further in praising Martin's motivational qualities: "Since the beginning of our, let me say, experience together already in Barcelona [last year] - he took at the end of the test all the people after the technical meeting and did a sort of speech with all the people.
"And I was a bit astonished; 'Is this the first minister of the world, or is it a rider?' In terms of motivation, the message he was delivering - so... chapeau.
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"Because at the end he's a 26-year-old rider. As Massimo said, he's already a leader, clearly. And probably the last step he did Sunday in Barcelona [in becoming champion]."
It is a notable assessment for a rider who has often come across as particularly mercurial - though the same was very much true of Martin's Aprilia predecessor Aleix Espargaro, who in the end managed to rally Aprilia around him.
As Rivola rightly pointed out, though, the tough times - and those are inevitable, particularly if the Aprilia still falls apart in the late-season flyaways like it tends to - will be the real test.
But Martin's title success, his strong first contact with Aprilia and the team's willingness to build around him do promise a longer-term future - and suggest it doesn't have to be totally win-or-bust for Aprilia in this two-year contract window.
