How Aprilia turned MotoGP failure into title contention with Rivola’s F1-inspired overhaul

Aprilia’s transformation from MotoGP strugglers to title contenders reflects a decisive blend of engineering rethink, Formula 1 expertise and renewed ambition at Noale

Three men pose together at an Aprilia MotoGP event, with two riders in branded caps and team apparel standing beside a central team executive.

Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola, centre, with his riders Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martín

Gigi soldano

Mat Oxley
April 28, 2026

Aprilia has been chasing MotoGP glory on and off since the 1990s without success. Until now. The Italian brand made its name in the 1980s and 1990s with finely honed two-strokes that grew to dominate the junior 250cc and 125cc world championships. But motorcycling’s fondly nicknamed ’stink wheels’ were being legislated out of existence by tighter emission regulations, so when the premier MotoGP championship went four-stroke in 2002, Aprilia moved with the times.

The Noale factory, a half-hour drive from Venice, had no four-stroke experience, so it hired Cosworth to build the engine for its first MotoGP bike, the fast but nasty RS Cube.

“The Cube wanted to kill you everywhere,” remembers Jeremy McWilliams, who raced the bike in 2004. “It made lots of horsepower but in all the wrong places. I think it broke every one of my ribs twice that year.” No wonder that the Cube project was cancelled when Piaggio, Europe’s largest manufacturer of scooters and motorcycles, bought Aprilia.

It was a decade before it was allowed back into MotoGP, with the all-new RS-GP, which was a step in the right direction, but no giant leap. Its narrow-angle V4 engine, designed for compactness, vibrated badly, which hurt power output and infected the chassis with chatter. Year after year, Aprilia finished last in the constructors’ championship, until it seemed inevitable that Piaggio would pull the plug once again.

Instead, Piaggio did the opposite, increasing investment and hiring Massimo Rivola from Formula 1. Aprilia Racing’s new CEO had been team manager at Minardi, sporting director at Ferrari and head of Ferrari’s Driver Academy, where he had mentored Charles Leclerc and others.

“The Cube wanted to kill you in all places. It broke every one of my ribs”

“I am passionate about motorcycles,” says Rivola, who rides on road and track. “Also, I took my decision after Charles moved into Formula 1, because that for me was sort of mission accomplished, because I was in charge of the academy. There was an old, let’s say, romantic challenge with myself from when Jules Bianchi passed away in 2015, because Charles was Jules’s little friend.”

Aprilia’s MotoGP project was in dire straits when Rivola arrived, but he was sure the engineers were better than recent results.

Related article

“The feeling I got was a huge potential, in terms of fantastic hardware and racing knowledge. So the target was to wake up the proudness of Noale to show they could deliver a winning bike. Also, coming from F1, I knew more people from there than from MotoGP, so I started contacting a few good friends and colleagues from four wheels, and I convinced them to come to Aprilia. It was a nice cultural challenge to mix Formula 1 with two wheels, but I was sure it would pay off.”

Among the Ferrari F1 boffins poached by Rivola was aerodynamicist Marco de Luca, whose know-how has put Aprilia in the vanguard of MotoGP’s downforce aero race.

Rivola is no engineer, but he knew he needed to encourage an open-minded, egalitarian attitude within his race department.

“Ideas come from people that aren’t shy to raise a hand to say something if they have an idea, if they know their boss won’t kill them,” he says.

And Rivola was one of the first to raise a hand.

“I kept asking Romano Albesiano [Aprilia’s technical director until he recently moved to Honda] why were we using a 72-degree V4 engine, while the others [primarily Ducati and Honda] use 90 degrees. Were we cleverer than them or was our engine related to Aprilia tradition? [Aprilia sells several road bikes with 72-degree engines.]

“So I decided to have a meeting in my office with all the engine guys and all the electronics guys. I asked them to tell me which they thought is better, a narrow-angle vee or 90 degrees. They had to write down all the pluses and minuses, then we had a roundtable and the 90 degrees won.”

Ten months later the all-new 90-degree RS-GP made its track debut during 2020 pre-season testing at Sepang, Malaysia.

“I did three laps, came into the garage and I was crying, because the bike was unbelievably good,” recalls rider Aleix Espargaró, who had struggled like hell on the narrow-angle RS-GP and two years later rode the 90-degree RS-GP to Aprilia’s first ever MotoGP victory.

Aprilia’s current factory riders – Italian Marco Bezzecchi and Spaniard Jorge Martín – are both in the hunt for the 2026 MotoGP title, thanks largely to Rivola’s efforts.

So, which does Rivola enjoy the most, MotoGP or Formula 1?

“In Formula 1, the team is part of the performance even during the race, because you have telemetry, radio, maybe there’s a safety car, so especially in my role of sporting director we could be quicker if I took the right decisions.

“In MotoGP it’s more up to the rider, but at the same time, you have to build your strategy before the race. F1 and MotoGP are two worlds, both of which I love. I’m happy where I am and that’s it.”

Comments

Loading Comments
×