MotoGP: Vinales announced as an Aprilia rider for 2022

Aprilia have announced today that they have secured the signing of Maverick Vinales for their 2022 MotoGP World Championship campaign.

Maverick Vinales has been announced as the second Aprilia rider for the 2022 MotoGP season, after the Noale manufacturer confirmed the news on the morning of 16 August.

Vinales, who sat out last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix after being suspended by his current factory, Yamaha, will join Aleix Espargaro next season as Aprilia makes the transition from Independent Team (run in collaboration with Gresini) to a fully fledged factory setup. 

Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola said in a press release from Aprilia: “We are extremely happy to announce that we have signed Maverick Vinales, a very high-level rider and one of the purest talents in the premier category.” Rivola continued, “I am confident that, like Aleix, he will embrace this extremely high-potential project,” he said.

The announcement comes at an uncertain time for Vinales. The Spaniard is not yet confirmed to be rejoining his current Yamaha team for the remainder of the season after the debacle in Austria. Should Yamaha decide to replace him for the rest of 2020, it would be interesting to see the degree to which Vinales became involved with Aprilia before the end of the year. 

Of course, Aprilia still has its testing agreement with Andrea Dovizioso, who will now certainly be missing from the RS-GP’s controls next season, at least in a racing context, and the Italian will be testing at Misano at the end of the month. However, with Aprilia’s plans now changing for 2022, and them taking Vinales over Dovizioso, it would be understandable if they tried to place the #12 on their machine as early as possible. 

That all depends on Yamaha’s decision on Vinales for the rest of 2021, but what seems almost certain for now is that Lorenzo Savadori will not be on the MotoGP grid in 2022. This seemed inevitable anyway, at least that he would not be with Aprilia next season. Rivola commented that “The arrival of Maverick in no way distances Lorenzo Savadori from the team, as he will remain an integral part of the Aprilia Racing family.” 

Savadori has been with Aprilia since his days in the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup in the mid-2010s, so it would not be a surprise to see him remain with the Noale marque in some capacity. Certainly, the Italian has not disgraced himself this year and proved to be perhaps closer to the pace than was anticipated, as well as adept in wet conditions. Therefore, a testing role for Aprilia might make sense for Savadori. However, with the satellite Yamaha team on the lookout for MotoGP riders for 2022, it might not be entirely impossible to see Savadori mentioned in that conversation in the coming weeks, given his MotoGP experience.