Our French cousin Vincent from Motosblog.
fr has picked up some interesting stuff at Monza (and no it wasn’t one of the brolly girls) regarding Aprilia’s Superbike plans in 2012, but since they’re all paddock rumors take it with a grain a salt and the usual doubting Thomas attitude.
Apparently the Piaggio Group who also owns Aprilia, seems interested in taking over Ducati’s dominant position as a manufacturer to WSBK satellite teams and has their eye on the well funded Czech team, Liberty Racing that is fielding Jakub Smrz and Sylvain Guintoli this season.
Smrz has already ridden an Aprilia RSV4 in 2010, when his Pata B&G Racing Team decided to switch machinery from Ducati to Aprilia at the Brno round.
The other team is Alstare Suzuki, run by the very fiesty Francis Batta whose complaints about not having almost any support from Suzuki is more than well documented.
The Belgium manager may be just be at the end of his tether on still running GSX-R’s next season and may be contemplating a more factory supportive Aprilia.
But maybe the best and wildest rumor is that Aprilia is wanting back in MotoGP, especially with Max Biaggi if he should take his second consecutive title in WSBK’s.
We know that the Italian manufacturer has repeatedly denied such a move and could never get away with entering the series under the new CRT rules without some sort of backlash from the MSMA, but we’ll be absolutely sure next month when the FIM announces the names of the teams accepted for 2o12.
