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Aleix Espargaro to Join Aprilia in 2017

Team Gresini Aprilia will employ two new names in the premier class from 2017. After announcing that the first confirmed chevalier for 2017 will be Sam Lowes, it appears that the second machine will have Aleix Espargaro at the helm.
Aleix Espargaro 1 photo
Photo: motogp.com
The elder of the Espargaro brothers was left out of Ecstar Suzuki's plans for the future in a not-that-polite way, he says. Things have been rolling fast for Hamamatsu lately, especially after their star rider Maverick Vinales declined Suzuki's offer and opted for becoming Valentino Rossi's teammate at Yamaha.

The first move Hamamatsu made was to secure the services of Andrea Iannone, and Aleix Espargaro says that this had happened even before having any talks about his future in the team. The situation evolved even faster as Suzuki chose Moto2 young gun Alex Rins for the second bike, with his willingness to sign a two-season contract with an option for extension apparently weighing quite heavily.

Already left without a job in 2017, Aleix Espargaro had offers from both Kawasaki and Yamaha to join their respective teams in World Superbike. Also, in MotoGP, Aspar Ducati wanted him but Aleix sought a factory team.

Reportedly, Espargaro signed a two-year deal with Aprilia, with the option to end the contract after one year in case either part will be unhappy with the results.

It is not Aleix' first contact with Aprilia as he has won two titles aboard Noale machinery back in the days of the Claiming Rule Team (CRT) class. However, Aprilia's current bike and, for that matter, the 2017 one has nothing to do with the old WSBK-derived machine, and both Aleix and his muture MotoGP boss Romano Albesiano have greta expectations from the RS-GP.

Namely, Aprilia hopes that Aleox Espargaro and Sam Lowes will be able to rival Suzuki instead of struggling to finish in the point-scoring positions. We have no news yet about the plans of Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista, only rumors about a possible Aprilia satellite team that would retain the two.
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