Aprilia sets MotoGP team orders timeline: "Stakes are high"

Aprilia technical director Fabiano Sterlacchini has suggested the manufacturer could start using team orders before the mathematical title threshold is reached.

Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola has so far insisted team orders will not come into play while a rider retains a mathematical chance of winning the title.

After Mandalika, where Aprilia claimed an historic top-four sweep but Jorge Martin left with the same two-point lead over Ducati’s Marc Marquez with which he arrived, all four RS-GP riders remain mathematically in contention.

With five rounds and a maximum of 185 points available, Martin’s team-mate and Mandalika winner Marco Bezzecchi is 46 points from the top, with Trackhouse riders Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez 96 and 119 points adrift respectively.

After the next round at Phillip Island, 148 points will remain, dropping to 111 after Sepang, then 74 after Qatar and 37 after Portimao, when only the Valencia finale remains.

Fernandez is currently the Aprilia rider closest to the cut-off. If the present gaps were unchanged, he would drop outside mathematical contention after Sepang, expected to be one of Aprilia's toughest remaining races. 

However, given Fernandez won at Phillip Island last season (after a double long lap for Bezzecchi) that scenario is far from guaranteed. Ogura also has a decent chance of heading to Qatar still in the title fight.

“This isn't the time for orders; we'll give ourselves 1-2 races”

Speaking after Sunday’s Indonesian Grand Prix, Sterlacchini indicated Aprilia could review its team-orders policy even before a rider is mathematically eliminated.

"The stakes are high, and we must avoid 'wasting money', as has already happened,"  Sterlacchini told Sky Italia. “This isn't the time for orders; we'll give ourselves 1-2 races, then we'll have to draw a line and start handing them out; that's part of this sport."

"Guidelines to avoid problems"

Speaking separately to the media at Mandalika, including Crash.net, Sterlacchini suggested that initial team orders would be focused on "avoiding problems" rather than changing positions.

“For sure [having four fast Aprilia riders] is a good problem! It's good to have this kind of problem to manage.

“For the moment, as also Massimo, our CEO declared, it's completely free [no team orders].

“Clearly, we start to discuss between us to, let's say, put some directive, some guidelines to avoid problems.

“Unfortunately, we saw that due to the accident of [the Sprint], it's a part of the game, and even though you are trying to clarify the roles, the possibility, the risk, sometimes something can happen.”

Fernandez and Bezzecchi started first and second on the grid for Saturday’s Sprint but tangled at Turn 1, while Martin later had to surrender the lead to Marquez due to tyre-pressure concerns.

A further dimension to the team orders issue is that, while Bezzecchi and Fernandez will remain at Aprilia next year and therefore have a long-term relationship with the factory to consider, Martin and Ogura are joining Yamaha.

Meanwhile, Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi said he has “no doubt" that Aprilia will use team orders "sooner or later" adding, "It seems right and logical to me, and I would do it.”

Ducati previously used team orders to try and help Andrea Dovizioso battle Marc Marquez for the MotoGP title.