RiderTua.com – Davide Brivio said that Aprilia must take advantage of its advantages, before Yamaha and Honda fully recover. From the Alpine F1 team, Davide Brivio returned to MotoGP as manager of the Aprilia Trackhouse satellite team. The Italian boss will make his debut for the rich American team at the Qatar GP this weekend. Brivio is happy to be joining Aprilia. Of course, he feels that currently in MotoGP Ducati is very strong. “They dominated the championship last year and they are the bike that everyone wants to beat. But I think Aprilia is in a good position to be a challenger to Ducati, along with KTM. So that’s also very interesting, trying to challenge a strong rider who is dominating. That’s why, we “I’m happy to be with Aprilia at this time,” said the 59 year old boss.
Aprilia’s aerodynamic developments impressed Brivio. “With the 2024 motorbike, there are a lot of improvements in the aerodynamics section. Actually, from what I see, Aprilia has been imitated by other manufacturers. So that’s good! That’s already a good achievement,” he added.
Davide Brivio: Must take advantage of Aprilia’s current advantages before Yamaha and Honda fully recover
Davide Brivio added, “So in my opinion, with Aprilia we are in a position to be a serious challenger. Of course, Ducati took years to get to this position. So hopefully Aprilia takes the same path, without undercutting other manufacturers like KTM.”
But Brivio also predicts that the struggling Japanese manufacturer will recover, thanks to new technical concessions. Now, Yamaha and Honda are in the process of recovery. “Maybe we have to take advantage of the current advantage before they fully recover. But as I said, I am happy with Aprilia because I think at the moment it is one of the best motorbikes,” he stressed.
The Trackhouse racer duo, Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez, will start the season on the 2024 and 2023 RS-GP motorbikes. Brivio believes that aerodynamics, which have become increasingly important since Brivio’s previous tenure at Suzuki, also means much greater changes to the motorbike from year to year.
Brivio explained that in recent years, with the current development of aerodynamics, racers have had to develop different skills, different ways of riding motorbikes. Even according to him, in the same brand it will be different, “Maybe we have two racers, they can both be very happy or maybe one is happy and the other can’t adapt. Because we always need to adapt our racing style to the aerodynamics and equipment (ride height/ ride height) and so on. That’s another variable.”
“So I have the impression, I wouldn’t say a different sport, but we need a different approach from a few years ago where the bike evolved but it was more or less always the same bike (from year to year). Better engine, better chassis “Now the steps are much bigger and as a result it is more difficult for drivers to adapt to all these things,” he continued.
Brivio even described Oliveira changing motorbikes from the RS-GP22 to the RS-GP24 as ‘almost like changing manufacturers’. “Miguel jumped from the 2022 version of the bike to the 2024. It seems like a big jump for him. My feeling is like he changed brands! Whether it’s true or not… We’ll have to ask him. But I mean it’s not just an evolution, it’s a big jump. And it gives “We know how big the difference is between one motorbike and another, in 1 or 2 years,” said the former Suzuki team manager.
Finishing 4th at the British GP was Oliveira’s (5-time MotoGP winner with KTM) best result with the RNF team during the injury-plagued 2023 season. Meanwhile his teammate Raul Fernandez managed to finish 5th in the season-ending race in Valencia as his best result in 2023.
Aprilia has managed to win 3 MotoGP races since the start of 2022 with Aleix Espargaro who has returned to form a factory team with Maverick Vinales.
