Brivio “excited to see 2025 Aprilia”, “Good ingredients” at Trackhouse
“We’re quite excited to see the ‘25 bike. It looks promising.”
Trackhouse team principal Davide Brivio believes the American outfit has “good ingredients” for its second MotoGP campaign.
Brivio, who oversaw MotoGP titles for Yamaha (Valentino Rossi) and Suzuki (Joan Mir) before moving to Formula One, was tempted back to two wheels by the newly formed Trackhouse project a year ago.
It proved a challenging campaign with Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez just 15th and 16th respectively in the world championship and Trackhouse ahead of only Honda in the teams’ standings.
But Brivio is confident the team has much firmer foundations for 2025, when Fernandez and new team-mate Ai Ogura will have the latest factory-spec machines from the start of this year.
“The first year was a learning year, especially also for Trackhouse as an organisation,” Brivio said.
“And now facing the 2025 season we have a lot of new things, starting from Aprilia. We’re quite excited to see the ‘25 bike. It looks promising.
“The new [Aprilia] technical director [Fabiano Sterlacchini] is giving new energy, a new way to approach things. And so we are excited to see where we can go [with the 2025 bike]."
Another indirect boost is Aprilia's signing of new world champion Jorge Martin.
“Of course, the factory team with the reigning MotoGP world champion is also kind of stimulating. It’s a great benchmark for us to understand where we are and how the bike is performing.”
“A refreshed Raul Fernandez”
Trackhouse’s 2024 highs included Fernandez briefly leading in Catalunya and a double front row in Sachsenring, where Oliveira finished runner-up in the Sprint.
But Trackhouse’s best grand prix result was a fifth for Fernandez - who was upgraded from the ’23 to ’24 spec RS-GP during the summer break - in the wet Buriram race.
Brivio underlined that they had re-signed Fernandez “because he’s a great talent. We think he has the potential and, to be honest, now the challenge is to use his potential.
“Raul is doing probably a different winter compared to the past. He is changing his way of training and it was a winter where he could think about what can be improved.
“What was the mistake last year? What can be done better? What was working? And so we are discussing, talking, chatting and I hope we will have a kind of refreshed Raul Fernandez in MotoGP.”
"Great talent” Ai Ogura
Joining Fernandez will be 23-year-old Japanese Ai Ogura, who rewarded Brivio and Trackhouse’s faith by going on to win last year’s Moto2 title.
“We took a decision to go for a rookie rider and Ai Ogura I think is a great talent,” Brivio said. “He demonstrated that last year when he went on to win the Moto2 title.
“We’re very excited to have him, to be honest. He has a great approach. He’s very committed to racing, very serious about it. And I'm very happy to start this experience with him.
“So we have two young, talented riders. Hopefully, we're also going to have a better bike in the 2025 Aprilia.
“I will tell you in a few races, but it looks like there are good ingredients to try to do something. So we will work on that...”
As a rookie, Ogura will be eligible to ride in the Sepang Shakedown test, which starts at the end of this month.
Fernandez and the full 2025 field will then take to the Malaysian track during the following official test.
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
