MotoGP: Bautista Signs Two-Year Contract with Aprilia

With the announcement that Scott Redding will ride with Marc VDS Racing in MotoGP, for the next three seasons no less, the rest of the pieces in the 2014 MotoGP Silly Season can finally start falling into place.

In the first of many announcements we expect to come in the following days, we learn that Alvaro Bautista has signed a two-year deal with Aprilia’s new MotoGP team.

The news is hardly a surprise, as Bautista currently rides for the Go & Fun Gresini Honda team, which will lose its title sponsor for 2015; and instead will manage Aprilia’s MotoGP efforts for the next four years, which will be called Aprilia Gresini Racing.

Keeping the team more or less intact, Bautista can expect a bike similar to the current-spec Aprilia ART of next season, while 2016 will see an all new bike (likely a purpose-built V4, that’s not too dissimilar from the 2014 ART)

“This represents another step in defining the team that will take the Aprilia bikes onto the track for the next MotoGP season,” said Gresini Racing Team and Aprilia Racing Manager Romano Albesiano.

“On Friday we announced our return to the championship with Gresini Racing. Today we have inserted another very important tile in the mosaic by announcing Bautista’s signing. I am particularly satisfied because Alvaro has been confirmed on a team that he already knows well, creating the basis for that rapidity in finding maximum competitiveness that led us to moving up our plans to return to MotoGP”.

The Aprilia Gresini Racing team has not announced its second rider yet, though familiar names to the brand, like Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty, have been swirling the paddock.

“I am very happy to have signed an agreement with Aprilia or the next to MotoGP World Championship seasons. Working in close contact with a manufacturer is what I wanted for my future and Aprilia has offered me a great chance. I am also very motivated to embark on this new adventure because I am coming back to a brand that has brought me great satisfaction in the past and with which I have shared some great times,” said Alvaro Bautista.

“Above all, the cooperation between Aprilia Racing and Gresini Racing will allow me to stay on a team that I’ve been racing with already for three years and which has become like a family to me. I have worked directly for a manufacturer in the past and I really liked developing a new project together. Knowing that I’ll be able to count on the support of so many engineers and technicians is exciting and I can’t wait to get started working with them,” he continued.