Marco Bezzecchi admits the Aprilia bike has slightly improved “in all areas” after its first outing at MotoGP pre-season testing in Sepang.
Bezzecchi started his season in Malaysia and finished the final day of testing with his best lap time of 1:56.526s, enough for second in the overall standings behind Gresini’s Alex Marquez.
The Italian will be hoping that Aprilia can help him match or better his third in the championship from last season, the manufacturer’s most successful result to date.
Following pre-season testing, Bezzecchi revealed that the Italian manufacturer is on the right track with its respective improvements.
“The bike is a bit better, I’d say it’s improved a little in all areas,” he said on Thursday at Sepang via Crash.net.
“The character is more or less the same. The biggest change occurred between the 2024 and 2025 bikes.
“This year, there are many changes, but the improvements are a bit smaller. It has certainly changed, but it’s difficult to quantify how much.”
Although the 27-year-old was satisfied with the RS-GP’s progress, he admitted there is still a need to improve the current package.
Bezzecchi didn’t go into specifics about where the improvements are required, but suggested there isn’t one main area of focus right now.
“Well, there are still many areas to improve, still many parts to try,” he explained.
“So, difficult to say a specific one. But we are working in general on all of the new bike, which is looking not too bad.
“But the engineers still want to see much more data and I still need many more laps to adapt to all of these changes.
“So, this is the main target for these days.”
Early Aprilia renewal ‘takes pressure off’ Marco Bezzecchi – Massimo Rivola
Unlike other riders who will be trying to decide on their future before the 2026 season starts, Bezzecchi has the luxury of knowing his plans already.
The Italian announced last week he will continue as a factory Aprilia rider until at least the end of the 2028 season, following its successful 2025 campaign.
By having his plans sorted before every other rider, Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola believes that it “takes pressure off” Bezzecchi, who can now take time to adapt to his new machine.
“Confirming Marco so early in the season, I think it proved the fact that since the beginning there was something special between this couple, Aprilia and Marco,” said Rivola.
“We saw his capability also to give us direction in developing the bike, so for sure it will be quite an important part to develop the ‘27 bike.”
Rivola continued: “It takes pressure off Marco, and that was the priority.”
“It was our priority to continue with Marco, because we saw his commitment and that there was something special.
“Also, in his way of working, we get along quite good together.”
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