Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola says giving MotoGP race seat to Lorenzo Savadori was down to 'company reasons', but hopes Bradley Smith will decide to remain as their test and wild-card rider. Confirms Andrea Iannone cannot be a test rider.
Aprilia opened its 2021 MotoGP track activities with a three-day private test at Jerez, where Aleix Espargaro and Lorenzo Savadori continued development work on the revised RS-GP.
Aprilia's announcement that it will give the second RS-GP race seat, the last remaining place on the 2021 MotoGP grid, to either Bradley Smith or Lorenzo Savadori is sure to add some spice to the team's pre-season testing.
Aprilia's all-new 2020 RS-GP may have failed to match the best result of the factory's previous MotoGP machine, peaking at eighth compared to sixth place, but CEO Massimo Rivola is confident they have advanced half-a-second closer to the front.
With a prohibited substance detected in both of Andrea Iannone's urine samples gathered at last November's Malaysian MotoGP, Aprilia recognise that some form of penalty appears inevitable at the upcoming hearing.
Eugene Laverty and Lorenzo Savadori are on hand to pull the wraps off the Milwaukee Aprilia RSV4 they will ride in the 2017 World Superbike Championship.
Chaz Davies accepts the first corner incident that ultimately hurt his aspirations in race were "more of a reflection on a bad qualifying"; subsequent pace a positive.