The 2024 (racing) season hasn’t even started yet, but the behind-the-scenes games and rumours about the rider market have already begun, with the latest one having Aprilia at the epicentre, with Massimo Rivola not hiding his desire to have an… Italian rider next year. There has been talk in the past about the Noale manufacturer’s interest in Enea Bastianini, something that the head of Aprilia has neither confirmed nor denied.
The CEO recently spoke about his desire to keep the current riders – Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales from the factory team – as well as Miguel Oliveira and Raúl Fernández from Trackhouse Racing, but he didn’t deny a move into the market, with Bastianini’s name once again appearing at the top of the priorities, as reported by GPOne, as told by Rivola himself: ‘I think everyone knows that Enea is one of the riders that I like. Carlo Pernat, his manager, knows well that it is also thanks to me that he achieved certain results in the negotiation with Ducati’.
As Ducati did in 2023 and now in 2024, an Italian team with an Italian driver is invariably a preference, even if the name chosen for the eventual vacancy might not even be Bestia: ‘An Italian rider would certainly be useful to us, whether it be Enea or another it is too early to say’.
What is certain is that all four riders currently linked to Aprilia will be finishing their contracts at the end of 2024, so there is a lot of news and behind-the-scenes games expected, with Rivola not hiding the media hype:
– Maybe we will reconfirm our two riders. Winning with Italian riders and Italian bikes offers a great sounding board. Having said that, I am very happy with the two, or rather the four, riders that we have. The first three months will be really wild for the rider market but we will face it in a calm way.
Jorge Martín is currently seen as the biggest «threat» to Enea Bastianini’s place in the Ducati Lenovo Team for 2025, and Miguel Oliveira is among the favourites to succeed Aleix Espargaró who, during last season, even admitted to quitting MotoGP at the end of this year, given the results he has shown and Aprilia’s wishes.
We can only wait for the next chapters, but tempers are already beginning to flare.