2016 Aprilia RS-GP on track in Qatar

The 2016 Aprilia RS-GP MotoGP machine has broken cover at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit, with Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista completing a three-day test ahead of next month’s final official pre-season outing for the GP field.

A late bloomer that failed to make either Sepang or Phillip Island for the opening two official tests, both riders have nonetheless left the Qatari track pleased with the progress on the new machine, according to Romano Albesiano, the Noale firm’s racing manager.

“After the Aragon shakedown with the test riders, Alvaro and Stefan began to get to know the new Aprilia RS-GP here in Qatar. These were three very intense and positive days of work. We are bringing home a lot of information and some growing pain problems we need to solve, but above all we are leaving with confirmation that the new bike’s dynamic performance is significantly better than the 2015 bike.

“We have an important development path ahead of us that will be necessarily accelerated, but we are confident that this will be a season of growth toward a decidedly interesting level.”

The new bike is just that; a totally new machine set to replace the old, open-class based machine that was in itself heavily inspired by Aprilia’s RSV4 superbike machine.