The changes Aprilia needs to make for Jorge Martin to achieve “big” MotoGP history

Jorge Martin’s move to Aprilia from the Pramac Ducati team presents the Spanish rider with the rare opportunity to win MotoGP titles on different brands.

However, for him to do so, Aprilia — which finished third in this year’s constructors’ standings — will have to make improvements to its MotoGP package.

“It is a downgrade,” affirmed Crash MotoGP Podcast host Jordan Moreland, “ because Ducati are so dominant. But the first test in Barcelona for [Jorge] Martin — we don’t obviously hear his comments, but it seemed like they were pretty happy on the surface.

“It’s just all about making that next step, isn’t it, for Aprilia, because that’s where they’ve been for the last season-and-a-half, really. The jump has been really noticeable between them and Ducati.”

Crash.net MotoGP editor Peter McLaren emphasised that an important aspect of Martin’s 2025 championship will be consistency — something the Mallorcan aced in 2024, but Aprilia certainly didn’t.

McLaren said: “I think it was [Massimo] Rivola that said it; they need to make their average better, don’t they?

“This year they were the only factory to beat Ducati, which in itself is an achievement, but at the same time they dropped behind KTM in the constructors’ standings.

“So, it’s kind of a mix bag for Aprilia, but really they need to make their average days better if they’re going to fight for the championship.”

Clinching the title would make Martin only the third rider in history to win the premier class Grand Prix title in back-to-back years on different brands, after Valentino Rossi (2003–04) and Eddie Lawson (1988–89).

“It would be massive for Martin if he could do that,” explained McLaren.

“I think it’s only Valentino Rossi and Eddie Lawson who have gone back-to-back champions on different manufacturers, so it’s a chance for him to make a big bit of history there.

“It’s certainly a big task ahead of him to do that, but the first thing is to get that consistency.

“We saw those spectacular races by Maverick in COTA, winning there, that perfect double that even he didn’t seem to understand why it had gone so well for him at that track, and never on the podium again after that. So, it really is the consistency.

“It’s a boring word, it’s a boring thing, but it really is what wins championships, especially when they’re over 40 races — that’s something that became apparent this year from Martin himself beating Bagnaia who won so many more Grands Prix than him.”

Part of the key to achieving better consistency will be exploiting better the 2024-spec Michelin rear tyre, a variable for the season just gone that only Ducati was able to maximise.

“The biggest thing that Aprilia is going to need to get from Martin [...] is how the 2024 Ducati made the 2024 Michelin rear tyre work,” explained Crash.net journalist Lewis Duncan.

“That’s the key thing for Aprilia. You speak to KTM riders, you speak to Aprilia riders — they’re not really sure, but they kind of think that the problems they had this year are not problems they had the year before. So, you can only lay the blame at one thing, and that’s the new rear tyre.

“That’s not because the rear tyre is bad, it’s that this new rear tyre had so much more grip, that only Ducati was able to really maximise it.

“Once they [...] unlocked the potential of it, nobody else was ever able to.

“We know KTM had all these vibration problems which were more than likely linked to the rear tyre, Honda had them as well, Ducati had them to begin with — I don’t remember the Aprilia riders complaining too much about vibration issues, but they had other things: grip issues, traction, degradation was quite high in Grands Prix.

“That one-lap explosiveness was there, and in Sprints the pace was alright, but over longer distances they struggled.

“You listen to Aleix Espargaro in Malaysia, he had no idea. This is what Aprilia will be hoping to get from Martin at the very least — if their theory is that it’s the 2024 rear tyre, then here is someone who knew how that worked on a bike that made it work.”

However, while it might be clear what Aprilia needs to do between now and the 2025 Thai Grand Prix at the beginning of March, achieving it will be complicated by the change of personnel at Noale this winter.

Not only have Marco Bezzecchi and Martin arrived to the factory, but so has Fabiano Sterlacchini, a new technical boss to replace the departing Romano Albesiano.

Duncan explained: “Aprilia have got to do that with a new rider line-up and a new technical leader because Fabiano Sterlacchini has come in to replace [Romano] Albesiano.

“Sterlacchini left the KTM project in June, but obviously he also left a bike [KTM RC16] that he was not able to understand how to get the maximum out of the rear tyre. There’s a quite big winter ahead of them, and the first couple of tests are going to be interesting.”