Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola says Raul Fernandez’s switch from the 2023 RS-GP to the🧜 2024 MotoGP machine has made it re༺alise “maybe the bike is more different than we thought”.

Aprilia appeared to make a big step forwar𒅌d with its 2024 RS-GP in the pre-season and hit the ground running at the begi𒐪nning of the campaign, with Maverick Vinales winning at the Americas Grand Prix.

But as the season has gone on, the Aprilia has gone wel🅰l in qualifying and sprints, but struggled to challenge at the front of grands prix.

And since Aragon, Aprဣilia has appeared to have fallen even further off the pace compared to its rivals.

Speaking ahead of last week’s San Marino GP, Rivola believes the change of bike for Fernandez at Trackhouse - who switched to the RS-GP 24 at Silverstone - has revealed just how different this year’s machine i🔥s to its predecessor and perhaps explains why it has struggled so much.

“Th🎃e relationship with Trackhouse is really good,” Rivola said.

“Davide [Brivio] I’ve known fo💎r many years and he’s the best team 🙈principal we could have in a satellite team.

“So, I trust him a lot in a🦹ll his experience, in understand the balance o🧸f the team.

“So, for sure it’s generally the last couple o💝f weekends are quite disappointing for all the Aprilias.

“But at the same time the♔re are some indications that are coming from, for example, Raul used the 23 bike until a couple of races ago and now he needs to adapt to a bike that is quite different.

“So, maybe the bike is 💟more different than we thought and we need to adjust it more than we thought.

“It’s a learning process and unfortunatel🐭y we are nღot maximising absolutely the performance.

“I think the perfor♓manceꦡ of the bike even today is not the one that we saw [previously].

“But in the en✨d, the whole team needs to learn a lot. We are changing the bike quite a lot every year to desperately get to the top and the risk sometimes is to lose the way.”

Such has been Aprilia’s strugglꦐes recently this year that it has fallen behind KTM in the constructors’ standings, albeit equal on 234 points.

On what Aprilia needs to look into to boost its f⛎orm, Rivola added: “There’s not a specific area. I think it’🅰s the understand of how to make the tyres work properly. That is the key.

“At the end, the best perf🌞ormance comes when you use the tyres in the best window.

“So, we need to set the bike for that specific target. Sometimes it’s not easy to replicate, because track layout is something, also di🌄fferent levels of grip, different levels of tarmac, different leveꦐls of roughness.

“For example, the🗹 micro-roughness of Aragon for us was a disaster in terms of grip.

“So, there ꧑are many, many aspects. And the target is to understand whaꦅt we need from the bike to use it all the time.”