The uncertainties and hope that arise from Aprilia’s much-needed British MotoGP win

Aprilia has enjoyed a lot of happy moments at Silverstone over the years. The British Grand Prix venue was the scene of its first MotoGP podium in 2021, when Aleix Espargaro proved the RS-GP had serious frontrunning potential. In 2023, he nabbed victory from the clutches of Ducati and Pecco Bagnaia.

But its 2025 British GP win with Marco Bezzecchi will arguably go down as its sweetest moment at Silverstone, and arguably one of its most important results ever.

Silverstone is used to dark clouds hanging over its vast, former RAF airbase expanse, but this year they all sat above the Aprilia hospitality unit as the paddock descended on Northamptonshire for the seventh round of the season.

Until last Thursday, Aprilia had yet to publicly acknowledge the bombshell reports from Spain that reigning world champion Jorge Martin was looking to exercise a performance clause in his contract to quit at the end of the year to potentially pursue a works Honda ride.

On Thursday morning at Silverstone, Aprilia issued its first statement on the matter, essentially shutting down any notions of a contract break and insisting that the deal between the pair must be honoured to the end of 2026.

About 72 hours later, Bezzecchi stood atop the Silverstone podium as the winner of the British GP to end a victory drought for Aprilia dating back to Austin last year. And the significance of it wasn’t lost on Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola on Sunday evening.

“The good news is that we thought we were right and now we proved that we were right,” he said, referencing the belief Aprilia always had (and that Jorge Martin has seemingly lost) that this is a project capable of winning.

“When you pass quite a difficult time maybe you start to doubt that your not following the right way and in Noale you prepare people quite hard to work night and day. Having such a big effort paid off by such a big result, it’s a big boost for Noale. That’s the most important thing…we are waiting for him [Martin]. Our mission is to have the best possible bike for when he comes back. Today we proved the bike can win, but we must do it many more times.”

Jorge Martin congratulated Bezzecchi and Aprilia on his Instagram story on Sunday evening. He will appear publicly for the brand at its champions day at Misano next week. But it’s clear that the wounds caused by this episode will take time to heal, on both sides.

But there is a new element to take into consideration. Should the worst happen and the Martin/Aprilia relationship does come to an end, Aprilia has quite quickly found a suitable candidate to fill the void in the same garage.

How Marco Bezzecchi firmly stepped out of the VR46 shadow

There will never be any separating Marco Bezzecchi from his VR46 roots. The Academy setting is more accurately a family. In it, Bezzecchi quickly worked his way to becoming a MotoGP race winner in year two of his premier class career. That didn’t continue in 2024 as he struggled to adapt his riding style to the tricky GP23.

This raised some questions as to just how good Bezzecchi is. Clearly a very talented rider, but having only proven his mettle on the grid’s best bike and finding himself in a tailspin when times got tough.

When the Aprilia opportunity came up, “it was a difficult decision” to take to leave the comfy surrounds of VR46. But the time for him was right to step into the factory role and put his stamp on developing a prototype.

Joining Jorge Martin at the squad, he came into 2025 seen as the firm number two tailgunner to the world champion. At the November Barcelona test, Martin was already being described as a leader. Bezzecchi’s role quickly changed when Martin injured himself after 13 laps of day one of the Sepang pre-season test. And as his injury woes continued, Bezzecchi became de facto team leader.

A couple of top six finishes inside the first three rounds was a promising start. But stability issues under braking hindered him in subsequent rounds as it has stopped him from fully utilising his riding style.

And nothing changed on the Aprilia for the British Grand Prix. His speed was a result of the Silverstone circuit not having many hard brakings and suiting the agile nature of the RS-GP. Bezzecchi himself admitted this on Friday, when he threatened some decent long run speed. Largely, what he went on to show in the sprint - where he finished fourth having been 19th at one point - and by winning the grand prix was his talent taking over.

Bezzecchi’s late race pace in the sprint was an indicator of him being a podium threat as the high tyre wear grand prix went on. But the sequence of events that led up to Bezzecchi actually leading the British GP were quite extraordinary, and without them Sunday was likely to go in a different way.

The grand prix was red-flagged on the second lap due to a collision between Franco Morbidelli and Aleix Espargaro leaving oil on track at Vale. Seconds before the stoppage, Alex Marquez had crashed at Turn 1 at the start and Marc Marquez would fall from the lead.

Alex Marquez, who was favourite to win, had to start on his second bike and lost some confidence on the medium front after his crash. As such, he fell through the pack early in the 19-lap restart. Marc Marquez, another win favourite, would drop to the fringes of the top 10 on lap three along with Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia when they ran off at Copse. This helped Bezzecchi go from eighth to fifth.

By lap six he was up to second and started to chip into polesitter Fabio Quartararo’s five-second lead. A broken ride height device thwarted Quartararo’s victory hopes in heartbreaking fashion on lap 12 of 19, releasing Bezzecchi into a lead he would not squander.

How that battle would have developed in the latter stages throws is a cruel unknown. But on lap seven Bezzecchi was around 0.3s quicker, was just under 0.2s faster next time around, and then set the fastest lap at 1m59.770s on the ninth tour. The gap between them was 4.5s at the start of lap 12.

What next in the Aprilia MotoGP saga?

One victory won’t change everything overnight. But it was certainly the best thing that could have happened to Aprilia right now.

Jorge Martin has teased that he’ll reveal his side of the story soon. And there will be a lot of this story that we will know nothing about for a long time to come. Working with what we do know, Bezzecchi’s victory has put him seventh in the standings and lifted Aprilia from last to third in the constructors’ standings.

Acknowledging this against what we think we know, arguing a performance clause has gotten a lot harder for the Martin camp. Aprilia has now won at least one grand prix every season now since 2022. That isn’t true of KTM or Yamaha, nor Honda, who won its first grand prix since 2023 at the French GP with Johann Zarco.

Only Ducati has been a more consistent winner in that time.

Rivola refused to get drawn into any kind of character assassination of Jorge Martin on Sunday at Silverstone. And in many ways, he didn’t need to. Sympathy for Aprilia through this time has only been outweighed by the negativity Martin has been subjected to - something Aprilia actually isn’t all that pleased about.

There is a clear effort being made on its part to slowly repair the damage wrought by this fallout. But there is still a long way to go before this incident is fully resolved. And there’s no guarantee that will happen.

What shouldn’t be lost among this is the step Bezzecchi has taken as a rider this year. Admitting to doubting himself in recent times as he struggled through 2024 on the GP23 Ducati and carried the burden of responsibility for Aprilia, he hasn’t lost sight of what it means to be a factory MotoGP rider.

“I’m super happy for Marco because he is someone who gives everything he has, every day, into the bike, and also off the bike,” Rivola noted. “After the last race he sent a video message to distribute to all the guys saying ‘keep pushing’. To feel that kind of responsibility is a big motivation.”

In times like this, a team needs a figurehead to help keep the ship afloat and prove that their is always light at the end of the tunnel. Aprilia’s Silverstone victory hasn’t proved that it now has a bike to consistently fight for the podium with. But what it has shown is that it is not totally in crisis, nor is its future without hope…