Aprilia: 2023 is the ‘real’ Marco Bezzecchi

The ‘real’ Marco Bezzecchi is the rider who won three races and finished third in last year's MotoGP World Championship, rather than the rider currently 11th in this year's standings.

That's the belief of Aprilia Racing CEO Maverick Vinales, who has signed the young Italian on a multi-year deal alongside current Pramac Ducati championship leader Jorge Martin from 2025.

While Bezzecchi defied the disadvantage of a year-old bike last season he has struggled to feel as comfortable on the GP23 with just one podium from the opening seven rounds.

That has left Bezzecchi eleventh in the world championship and only the fourth-best GP23 rider after Marc Marquez (3rd), new VR46 team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio (9th) and Alex Marquez (10th).

“When a rider one year performs in such a good way and the following year it's not the same, you start wondering if that means not enough talent or if there are some other issues that could come from different [areas]. Not necessarily just technical,” Rivola said.

“At the end, my feeling is that the real Bez is the one of last year and not that of this year… And for this reason, I still hope they keep the ‘fake’ [this year] to get better results for us!” Rivola joked.

“But I trust in his speed and his talent quite a lot.”

‘We need to align the planets’

Asked to pick out what impressed him about Bezzecchi, Rivola cited wet weather ability and last year’s dominant Indian MotoGP victory.

“There are characteristics for sure that were quite impressive to me,” said Rivola. “For sure riding on the wet is one, the other one in particular the first and only time we all went on a track that was new to everybody [India]. He won by a huge gap [8.6s].

“So there are signs of talent that are unequivocal. You really see, OK, this guy has something special.

“You could argue this year he is not delivering a good performance despite for example, Marc Marquez having the same bike and always fighting for top positions.

“So I think also that sometimes there are external factors, not just technical, that can guide the performance. The tricky aspect and the nice aspect is to find what is really the secret to align the planets.

“If I look at Maverick for example in Austin, I [would] expect [him] to become world champion... But unfortunately, the planets are not always aligned. So we need to find the way to align those planets. “

Rivola added that Bezzecchi’s character seems to combine elements of Aprilia’s current race-winning factory line-up - Aleix Espargaro (retiring at the end of this season) and Vinales (switching to Tech3 KTM) - and the soon-to-arrive Martin.

“It looks to me also that [Bezzecchi’s] quite a Latin character and we are used to that. Aleix for example is one of those. Jorge [Martin] also looks to be one of those. So it will be quite a motivating garage in Aprilia racing, but I'm looking forward to that.

“But first of all, we will be super focused for this year because we need to keep growing the bike. And we need to understand what they will need.

“Because they are coming both from a top bike [the Ducati] and for both of them is the only MotoGP bike that they rode. So it could help from one side also the direction, if the direction is better to follow, or maybe they will keep looking for something that our bike cannot provide.

“It's difficult to predict but in the end, I think the choice of these two riders [Bezzecchi and Martin] is the best we could get.”

While the factory Aprilia line-up is now decided, the identity of the satellite Trackhouse riders - currently Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira - are still to be decided for 2025.