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Category: Superbikes
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ON THE OCCASION OF ITS RETURN TO MOTOGP AS A FACTORY TEAM, APRILIA WELCOMES A GREAT CHAMPION TO JOIN ALEIX ESPARGARÓ: WELCOME MAVERICK!
It is with great pleasure that Aprilia welcomes Maverick Viñales to the Aprilia Racing factory team.
This completes the official team for the 2022 MotoGP season, with Maverick coming alongside Aleix Espargaró astride the RS-GP. The Spanish rider has signed an annual contract with an option for renewal.
The signing of Viñales is another step in the Italian team's growth and development strategy, which comes just in the year of the transition to a factory team. Two events that testify to Aprilia's desire to continue to grow in the top category of world motorcycling.
Born in 1995, Maverick Viñales made his début in World Championship GP Motorcycle Racing in 2011 astride an Aprilia in the 125 category, taking 4 wins and 5 podiums, making him the best rookie of the season and finishing third overall. After another high-level season, he won the Moto3 World Title in 2013 before moving up to Moto2 the next season. Thanks to the potential demonstrated in the intermediate class, he earned a seat in MotoGP from the 2015 season with Suzuki and on Yamaha from 2017.
In the premier class Viñales has taken 9 wins, 13 pole positions and 28 podium finishes, in addition to two overall third places as his best final placement in the rider standings.
MASSIMO RIVOLA - APRILIA RACING CEO
"We are extremely happy to announce that we have signed Maverick Viñales, a very high-level rider and one of the purest talents in the premier category. Our project has now been enriched with the value that Maverick brings - a World Champion who has confirmed his talent as a top rider in MotoGP - at a time of great change, after bringing a completely revamped bike to the track and having consistently established ourselves in the group of protagonists, we are also facing a switch in status as a Factory Team now, in order to take Aprilia to success. We are honoured to be able to make all of our best skills available to Viñales along with our enthusiasm and our passion. I am confident that, like Aleix, he will embrace this extremely high-potential project. The arrival of Maverick in no way distances Lorenzo Savadori from the team, as he will remain an integral part of the Aprilia Racing family."
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STYRIA GP QUALIFIERS
SEVENTH PLACE TIME AND THE THIRD ROW FOR ALEIX ESPARGARÓ: “WE ARE CONFIRMING OUR PROGRESS HERE AS WELL. WE DID AN EXTRAORDINARY JOB”
LORENZO SAVADORI HALTED BY A CRASH IN HIS TIME ATTACK, SETTLES FOR THE SEVENTH ROW: “I WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO START FARTHER FORWARD BUT WE ARE CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE BEST”
Confirming the good signs on the track from the start of the weekend, Aleix Espargaró rode his Aprilia RS-GP to seventh place (1’23.448) in the qualifiers for the Styria GP, scheduled for tomorrow on the Austrian Red Bull Ring track. The good placement earns him the best spot on the third row of the starting grid.
For the umpteenth time this season, Aleix went straight through to Q2, the qualifying session that includes the top 12 riders, based on his top-ten placement in the last morning free practice sessions, where he finished eighth with a time of 1’23.594. His further improvement in qualifying took him close to the second row, which he missed by just 72 thousandths of a second. The Austrian circuit, which had always been difficult in past years, is an outstanding test bench for the RS-GP’s improvements and the result today is comforting for the Aprilia project.
Lorenzo Savadori, who did not make it into the top ten, had to go through the Q1 session, but he crashed during the final lap whilst, after improving in the first sectors, was doing his time attack. This meant that he would have to settle for the seventh row with a time of 1’24.405, done before his crash.
ALEIX ESPARGARO'
"I am extremely satisfied with our result, considering the characteristics of the track and the gap. Of course, I cannot be entirely happy with a seventh-place time, but if I look back at a year ago, I started fourteenth here and with a time that was seven tenths slower, whereas today I was faster than the 2020 pole position. This confirms the huge step forward we’ve made. I complimented all the engineers in the technical briefing because they did an extraordinary job. We accumulate almost all of the disadvantage in the first sector, which is made up of two straights that are undoubtedly not our strong point, whereas the RS-GP does very well on the rest of the track. We’ll see what happens tomorrow because it looks like it is going to rain and that raises some doubts as to the safety of the track. Personally, I hope we’ll be able to race in the dry."
LORENZO SAVADORI
"Unfortunately, I was unable to finish my flying lap, which would have let me start somewhere around fifteenth or sixteenth place. I crashed on turn 8 and in a rather strange way, but without any physical consequences. In any case, we are getting closer and closer to the best and that is positive. Overtaking here will be no simple task, so staying with the group in the early laps will be fundamental for me."
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MOTOGP RETURNS TO THE TRACK WITH A DOUBLE ROUND AT SPIELBERG
After the summer break, the MotoGP returns to the track with a double round at the Austrian track of Spielberg. A circuit with unique characteristics, with sudden braking and violent acceleration, challenging from a technical point of view especially with regard to the race distance.
The mood at Aprilia is undoubtedly positive. Consistent results are rewarding the Italian manufacturer's work on the new RS-GP, whose potential is being exploited to the full by Aleix Espargarò. Like any innovative project, there is still room to refine and evolve a technical package that has already proven to be competitive: an activity that continues to see the Aprilia Racing department engaged on all fronts.
ALEIX ESPARGARO'
"The summer break was certainly very useful for regaining the physical and mental energy needed in a competitive championship like MotoGP. The second half of the season will be crucial for us, we have to confirm the positive trend shown so far and look for a further step forward. The Austrian track may not be the one that best suits the characteristics of our package, but it must also be said that the RS-GP 2021 is showing good adaptability to different conditions. We'll wait for the first sessions to analyse our level".
LORENZO SAVADORI
"This is one of the tracks I know the least, having only raced there in 2019 with MotoE, so an extremely different category. I will have to recalibrate my parameters to make the most of the RS-GP. I really want to get back on the bike, during the break I tried to work on many aspects to be ready for this second part of the season."
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Everything we mentioned so far would be nothing without the help of our partners, which are an integrant part of the Gresini Family. The commercial department is a key pillar of Gresini Racing and has been managed for the last two decades by Carlo Merlini, the commercial and marketing director of Gresini Racing.
This is a crucial moment in the development of this side of the project: many #GresiniFamily existing sponsors have already decided to join this new effort in the premier class and also new sponsor are coming onboard, given the strong attraction by the incomparable stage of MotoGP.
How does the MotoGP project come to light from the commercial side of things?
Putting together a budget for a project normally requires a lot of dedication and great work method. In our case, there have been some factors that have surely taken the work complexity on a different level – first and foremost the huge loss we had to face last February: this is an incommensurable void which will never be filled. Aside from this emotional aspect, complexity was also generated by the level of budget that we need build when it comes to a MotoGP project and by the fact that, after seven years of joint venture with Aprilia, we found ourselves back to square one with regards to budget building.
The network of relationship we have in place with our existing and prospect sponsors was extremely useful and allowed us to develop discussions far earlier than usual and eventually to get to the point of signing a contract with Ducati with an already well-shaped budget.
The business model of an “independent team” requires a very careful risk management and I must say that this has been one of the biggest learning of the over 20 years of work alongside Fausto.
New and ‘old’ allies
This new Gresini MotoGP project was a precious opportunity to offer our partners in the lower categories a chance to follow us in this new journey, to develop the sponsorship in the premier class with all the perks it has, starting from the TV audience numbers and media attention it gets. We have already announced that established partners such as Federal Oil, Astra Otoparts, YouAll e Kapriol will be onboard. But obviously, a new chapter is also a chance for new partners to enter the #GresiniFamily, and I would like to mention that Flex-Box was among the first ones to embrace the Ducati Gresini MotoGP project, and did so in the key role of title sponsor.
Indonesia still has a key role…
Our deep, decade-long roots in Indonesia are well known. This is a bond that comes from the fact that Indonesia is a key country for the MotoGP universe, as the series has over there the biggest following in the whole world. For us, Indonesia has become our main foreign market, in which we have developed very important partnerships. The opportunity to jump onboard the Gresini’s MotoGP platform was taken first and foremost by Federal Oil, as the Gresini Moto2 title sponsor decided to move its commitment to MotoGP by becoming to my knowledge the first-ever Indonesian sponsor in the premier class! And then also an historical partner such as Astra Otoparts has joined the challenge and others will follow.
#CiaoFaustoâ¤ï¸
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It is no mystery that the Gresini MotoGP project was Fausto Gresini’s secret wish. A dream which, we’re absolutely sure, he would have carried out with his own hands. His early disappearance surely put Gresini Racing in front of a complex reality, a reality which his wife Nadia Padovani was able to shape after Fausto.
From here, the Gresini MotoGP project was born, a project which found in Ducati Corse the right ally and then in Di Giannantonio and Bastianini an all-Italian line-up, one which is romantically tied to the history of Fausto – and of Gresini as a company.
NADIA PADOVANI GRESINI – GRESINI RACING TEAM OWNER & TEAM PRINCIPAL
“To continue in the sign of Fausto was and still is our mission and – to do so the best way possible – the return to MotoGP as an independent team was an obligatory step. The last months were really intense, loaded with work and emotions and together with the team with focused our efforts to create the best possible MotoGP project. Ducati Corse and Fausto were in talks already at the end of last season and I think choosing Borgo Panigale’s manufacturer was the right call, even though I’m not forgetting about the important partnership with Aprilia these past years.
Regarding the riders… what can I say? Talent, speed, ambition and their success are in front of everybody’s eyes, and I believe MotoGP will be their stage for many years to come. They are very young, and the fact that it was indeed Fausto who ‘discovered’ them and brought them on the world stage makes me think that it is a line-up he would have approved with full grades.”
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO - MOTOGP RIDER
“Getting to the top doesn’t happen every day. Next year I will be racing in the most premier class in this sport, and this is an incredible dream. The first day it will be like getting into the big league: it will be a whole new, huge experience, doesn’t matter how it ends up. Going from Moto2 to MotoGP will be tough: 100 more horsepower, more people in the pit-box, more commitments, more buttons on the handlebars… It will be a huge change, but I feel I’m ready and I can’t wait.”
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ENEA BASTIANINI – MOTOGP RIDER
“It is a fantastic thing to be back with Gresini Racing, a team that is like a family to me and who strongly believed in me in the past. In fact, it was the first one to believe in me. We have been together for three years and I only have good memories. Obviously, I would have loved to start this new journey with Fausto, but the Gresini Family is named this way for a reason, so I will have a lot of friends close by who will help me. We found the agreement with Ducati that we were looking for and I’m sure next year we will have a very competitive bike. I will be much readier for this category entering 2022 and with even greater motivation.”
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