Aprilia has a satellite team for the first time in 2023 – the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team – but the truth is that this partnership has been riddled with controversy little after the start. Miguel Oliveira looks to the future with some uncertainty about the equipment he will have at his disposal in 2024, although he is clear about what is best for the evolution of the RS-GP and the Italian project.
At the start of this partnership it was widely said that Aprilia was very close to RNF and provided very strong support, but more recently Aleix Espargaro has questioned the role of Oliveira and Raul Fernandez’s team, even though (yesterday) he said that it is his responsibility to develop the bike, partly taking some “pressure” off the Malaysian structure.
After another round of the World Championship, at the home of RNF, Oliveira was asked if he, like the factory team, had the latest version of the bike, with the Portuguese rider arguing that his team should also have the latest version of the bike, which is crucial for its development: ‘I certainly believe that the goal should be for [the satellite team] to have the same material because, in the end, we can compare what we have to better build up for the future’.
However, the #88 assured that he doesn’t know what will happen in the future, but made it clear that he would like to have the same bike as the factory riders: ‘It’s not up to me to answer that. I don’t know all the details of the project, but we’d certainly all like to have the same bike’.