MotoGP Springtime for Aprilia

Don’t ask me how that happened. Aprilia, I mean. From bottom of the class to the top of the podium, in one easy move. Well, perhaps not one … it’s actually taken seven years of dogged persistence in the face of serial humiliation. But it still seems to have elements of all-of-a-sudden.

- By Michael Scott

Aleix Espargaro’s Argentine GP win, the first ever in the premier class for the other Italian marque, did not have any appearance, however, of a flash in the pan. It came after he had dominated the abbreviated practice sessions at the Argentine track, and claimed Aprilia’s first fourstroke pole (the last was by Jeremy McWilliams at Phillip Island in 2000, on the undersize “super-250” 500-class twin).

The win was achieved with patience and ultimate superiority. It may have looked as though Jorge Martin’s Ducati had the upper hand, but Espargaro was playing a canny waiting game. When he did ultimately get by, after a couple of earlier feints at the end of the long straight, he pulled steadily clear. No further questions, m-lud.

(Any temptation to evoke the “cat and mouse” image must be resisted. As long as Marc Marquez is not there, there is an element instead of “while the cat’s away, the mice will play.”)