Source: Aprilia Racing.

Aprilia Racing manager Romano Albesiano is confident that the Italian manufacturer’s return to MotoGP will result in success, despite the mammoth challenge of taking on Honda and Yamaha in the sport’s elite category.

The night races at the Qatar Grand Prix will launch the 2015 MotoGP season and mark Aprilia’s return to the top world championship motorcycling competition with Gresini Racing.

This is a courageous choice, move up one year ahead of the originally announced schedule, driven by the desire to grow more quickly and accepting the challenge on track with riders Alvaro Bautista and Marco Melandri.

The steps in the project include this first year dedicated entirely to development, even in race conditions, before introducing a full factory configuration prototype bike in 2016.

“With the Qatar round Aprilia’s MotoGP adventure begins,” explained Albesiano. “We are well aware that we will be sizing ourselves up against the highest technical and sports level in motorcycling, but we are doing it confident that we have all the means to develop a successful project.

“Aprilia’s sports history demonstrates this. The purpose of the upcoming season for us is to gather data and know-how on MotoGP specific technologies, to strengthen the work group at home and on the track and simultaneously it will allow us to design a prototype and put it on the track in 2016.

“The constant competition with our rivals, definitely fierce and difficult for us at the moment, will allow us to speed up our growth process in the category, as has already happened during the winter tests.”

Aprlia Racing boasts 54 world championships, 28 of which from 2006 to the present after Aprilia joined the Piaggio Group.