“Not yet”: Aprilia continues to downplay MotoGP best bike claims

Aprilia is “not yet” prepared to state that its MotoGP bike is the best on the 2026 grid, despite having won four of the opening five races in 2026.

Aprilia currently leads all three MotoGP championships – for riders, teams, and manufacturers – and it achieved its first ever podium lockout in the premier class last weekend (8–10 May) at Le Mans.

The Noale factory has also won four of five grands prix this year, is also the only manufacturer to have been on the grand prix podium at all five rounds this year, and has won the joint-most Sprints of any manufacturer, with Jorge Martin having taken two of the five so far, equalling Ducati’s two, both courtesy of Marc Marquez. KTM has won one Sprint this year, when Pedro Acosta won in Thailand at round one.

Despite the success, Aprilia Racing team manager Paolo Bonora does not want to declare the RS-GP MotoGP’s best bike in 2026 yet.

“Not yet,” said Bonora when asked by TNT Sports after the Le Mans race whether he can say the RS-GP is now MotoGP’s best bike.

“We didn’t achieve anything at the moment. 

“We have only one goal at the end of the championship and the only way, to be honest with you, and we think it is the right way, is to don’t put any expectation into our riders.”

Bonora added: “We don’t put any expectation on our riders since Wednesday and Thursday in the meeting that we have typically with both of them. 

“We say clearly ‘This is another race, keep the same way of working as you did in the last one, and we didn’t achieve anything at the moment so please take care, be patient, we totally trust on you, and keep working’.”

Of Aprilia’s two factory riders, Jorge Martin was much the more impressive rider in France, the Spaniard closing a gap of over two seconds to Marco Bezzecchi in the final 10 laps of the race as he went from seventh on the grid to win his first grand prix with Aprilia.

Bonora explained that Martin had made a step at the Jerez test.

“We found in Jorge’s [Martin] side, in particular, we put him on the bike in a better way, with the position [at the Jerez test],” Bonora said.

“He feels better. Also the setup changed a little bit – it was not far from Marco, but a little bit different because he’s a different height, a different weight, so it’s necessary to fit 100 per cent for him. 

“After the Jerez test, we found something for him, and also, in the electronics side, on both we found something.”

Martin’s strength reflected badly on Bezzecchi, who was comfortably out-paced by his teammate in both the Sprint and grand prix at Le Mans, although it’s the Italian who leads the championship by one point heading to Barcelona on 15–17 May.

“Here, he [Bezzecchi] missed something,” Bonora said of Bezzecchi’s Le Mans weekend.

“Since Friday we worked a lot, in particular in the changes of direction, in some places of this specific track because this track layout you need to have an agile bike, but a stable bike as well because with these long straights it’s necessary to keep the wheelie as low as possible.

“At that moment, we found something a little bit better on Jorge’s side. 

“Probably his confidence was a little bit better than Marco and this was the difference during the race.”