The 2024 racing season has not even started yet, but the backstage games and rumors about the driver market have already begun, with the latest focusing on Aprilia, with Massimo Rivola not hiding the desire to have an Italian driver next year. There has been talk in the past about the interest of the Noale manufacturer in Enea Bastianini, something that the Aprilia manager neither confirmed nor denied.
The CEO recently spoke about the 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 did not deny going to the market, with Bastianini’s name emerging again as the top priority, as reported by GPOne, as stated by Rivola himself: ‘I think everyone knows that Enea is one of the riders I like. Carlo Pernat, his manager, knows well that it was also thanks to me that he achieved some results in the negotiation with Ducati’.
Just as Ducati did in 2023 and now in 2024, an Italian team with an Italian rider is invariably a preference, even if the chosen name for a potential vacancy may not be Bastianini: ‘An Italian rider would certainly be useful for us, whether it’s Enea or someone else, it’s still too early to say’.
What is certain is that all four riders currently linked to Aprilia will end their contracts at the end of 2024, so we can expect many news and backstage games, with Rivola not hiding such media attention:
– Maybe we will confirm our two riders again. Winning with Italian riders and Italian bikes is a great sounding board. That being said, I’m very happy with both, or rather, with the four riders we have. The first three months are going to be really wild for the rider market, but we will face them calmly.
Jorge Martín is currently seen as the biggest “threat” to Enea Bastianini’s place in the Ducati Lenovo Team for 2025, and Miguel Oliveira appears among the favorites to succeed Aleix Espargaró who, during last season, even admitted his farewell to MotoGP at the end of this year based on the results presented, as well as the will of Aprilia.
We must wait for the next chapters, but tensions are already starting to rise.
