Why the return of ‘the captain’ at Jerez MotoGP is another blow for Aprilia

There really isn’t much anyone in the MotoGP paddock can say right now that will make Aprilia feel any better as the 2025 season rolls into Europe for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

Already suffering two major setbacks with reigning champion Jorge Martin on day one of pre-season testing, and then again days before the start of the new season in Thailand, Aprilia will be without the #1 for Jerez… and for a long time beyond.

Martin was given the all-clear to return to action and make his Aprilia debut two weeks ago at the Qatar Grand Prix. Simply looking to make it through the weekend unscathed, he was just nine laps from doing so when he suffered a horrendous accident at Turn 12 during the grand prix.

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The crash itself going through the fast right wasn’t ideal, but wasn’t serious in the grand scheme of things. It was the fact he had Fabio Di Giannantonio so close behind and without time to avoid him that compounded the misfortune Martin has suffered this season.

The strike from the VR46 Ducati rider left Martin with a collapsed lung and 11 fractures to his ribs. He has since been discharged from hospital in Doha, but will remain in the city for a few more days before returning to Europe to begin his recovery. Aprilia hasn’t given a timeline yet, but some reports suggest it could be as long as August before we see Martin back on his RS-GP.

He was officially ruled out of the Spanish GP by Aprilia last week, with the team announcing test rider Lorenzo Savadori as his stand-in. It’s likely that Savadori will be carrying out those duties for some time, having done so already in the first three rounds of 2025.

Aprilia has got a lot going for it. Its big money grab of Martin last year was inspired, while it has beefed up its ranks with a proven race winner in Marco Bezzecchi on the second factory bike, while Ai Ogura has been a revelation at Trackhouse. The marque also has ex-Ducati and KTM man Fabiano Sterlacchini helming the technical side of the project.

But the Martin situation has highlighted Aprilia’s biggest weakness: its reserve pool. And this is something that will be further thrust into the spotlight this weekend by Honda.

Aleix Espargaro’s Honda debut threatens to impress

Aleix Espargaro will make his MotoGP race return this weekend at the Spanish GP and his debut with Honda, having joined the Japanese marque as its official test rider at the end of last year. Not 48 hours after officially retiring, he had ditched his factory RS-GP for the Honda test team’s RC213V.

When Espargaro announced earlier last season that he was retiring, it was widely expected that he would move into Aprilia’s test team. Dubbed ‘the captain by the marque, Espargaro helped steer that bike from back-of-the-grid dud to race winner between 2017 and 2024 and knew the RS-GP better than anyone.

But almost instantly he cast doubt on remaining in the Aprilia fold, before signing with Honda. When former Aprilia technical chief Romano Albesiano signed for HRC, the Japanese marque very quickly had built an enviable test team.

The role of the test rider has always been important, but has taken on new dimensions in recent years. KTM made a big move to snare Dani Pedrosa when he retired at the end of 2018, and now has Pol Espargaro on its books, while Yamaha had the presence of mind to get a top name in Cal Crutchlow for 2021. It beefed things up for 2025 by adding fresh-from-the-grid talent in Augusto Fernandez, while Andrea Dovizioso has been putting some miles on the M1 while Crutchlow has been sidelined with injury.

Honda brought in Espargaro as well as Takaaki Nakagami. Ducati doesn’t have the big name in its testing ranks, but Michele Pirro has been vital to that brand’s development.

Aprilia is the odd-one out. Savadori is a solid tester, and has by no means disgraced himself in his outings this year in races. He currently has a point to his credit, which is one more than full-time rider Somkiat Chantra at LCR Honda. But Savadori isn’t a MotoGP-level racer, and as a stand-in falls below what a top team like Aprilia needs.

Augusto Fernandez’s two appearances with Pramac have somewhat proven this. The 2022 Moto2 champion has three points to his tally after a 13th-place finish in his Yamaha race debut at COTA. He hasn’t qualified last in either of his appearances so far.

While Aleix Espargaro hasn’t raced yet this season, he has done plenty of miles on the RC213V in various tests. And partnering with a pro cycling team this year, too, his competitive edge hasn’t fallen by the wayside either.

This is also a rider who has form at Jerez, scoring a fifth in 2023 and a podium in 2022. And in his final full-time grand prix appearance in last November’s Solidarity GP, he was just 5.753s from race winner Pecco Bagnaia and a shade under two seconds from the podium in fifth. The 35-year-old went out on a competitive high and remains sharp.

Honda’s expectations for him won’t be high. He is there, after all, to effectively prepare the rest of the HRC stable for Monday’s post-GP test. But in his last public appearance on the RC213V - which was also his first - Espargaro was 14th overall in November’s Barcelona test and was the second-fastest Honda, just over two tenths from Martin on the Aprilia.

Dani Pedrosa stunned in 2023 with rides to sixth and seventh in a wildcard for KTM at the Spanish GP, while he followed that up with a brace of fourths at Misano. At Jerez last year, he lucked onto the podium in the sprint in a wild Saturday race. Now, Pedrosa is Pedrosa - he scaled those heights because he is a 31-time MotoGP winner and three-time championship runner-up.

But given the pace of the Honda so far and the fact that he is still race fit, don’t be surprised to see Espargaro at least troubling the top 10 this weekend.

That is unlikely to be the case for Savadori, whose turn as a tester is being severely disrupted by his race call-ups. To expect miracles is unfair. But Aprilia will have to watch on at its former leader riding competitively on a Honda this weekend and sullenly wonder what if…