Fausto Gresini talked a lot in the last days about Aprilia and the future of the team, while Massimo Rivola, Aprilia Racing CEO, did the same. Both expressed their desire to keep Andrea Iannone and Aleix Espargaro, but the future of the first one is linked to the appeal made for doping ban.

On the other side, Rivola said that Aprilia and Aleix were really close to announce the extension of their relationship and now it is finally official that Espargaro will race with the Italian Team for the next two season, extending his contract until 2022.

The Spaniard started to work with Noale’s crew from 2017, starting an ambitious project to bring Aprilia to the top and during winter test they seemed to be in a good stage, with Aleix who even sentenced that they would have been ready to fight for the podium in Qatar.

Of course, both Aleix and Aprilia are happy with the deal done: “I am really happy to keep racing with Aprilia. They became my second family, this is the most important contract of my life, I am the main point of this project. I was convinced by the step up made in the last months, our bike was good during MotoGP pre-season tests. We have to finish the job started last winter, I cannot wait to start and to see again the whole crew”

Massimo Rivola expressed his satisfaction as well: “We wanted to keep Aleix with us and we are happy with the deal done. Our goal was to stay with the actual line-up to give continuity to our project and a rider like Aleix is crucial. He is the captain of the team, we started a totally new project with new materials; the new bike seems to be good. We hope that he will bring Aprilia to the top!”