Winner of the 1990 West German 250GP as a rider, Zeelenberg’s first major success as a team manager came when 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Cal Crutchlow won the 2009 World Supersport title for Yamaha.

Zeelenberg then moved to MotoGP the following season, remaining in the factory Yamaha team alongside Jorge Lorenzo and then Maverick✨ Vinales until joiniꦑng the newly formed Petronas SRT project in 2019.

The Malaysian team scored six wins with Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli and finished 2020 title runner-up before Petronas pulled♊ the plug on funding at the end of 2021.

RNF was formed out of SRT’s ashes🐻, operating on a shaky one-year Yamaha dealꦬ. Rather than renew for 2023, Razlan Razali signed a longer-term agreement with Aprilia, the surprise of this season with one win, eight podiums and a title challenge.

Completing the fresh start are two new riders, Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez, bot🤪h arriving from KTM, who got their first taste of RNF and Aprilia ꦡat the Valencia test.

“It's not so easy, changing [manufacturer] from one day to the other,” Ze꧑elenberg said. "It took months to prepa𒅌re for those six hours.

“Basically Sunday [🌌Valencia race] was a Yamaha day so we put everything outside, to close the doors and stop the relationship🔴 in a good way, giving back the laptops and all the data.

“Then we started fr🍨esh with material from Aprilia on the Monday morning. We had only two bikes, but A📖prilia prepared those bikes very well for us.

“Each rider also had two extra mechanics from the test team, just to help also our me🦩chanics, because before the🌃y were Yamaha mechanics so if something happens it's nice to have the [Aprilia] boys that have been building the bike there.

“But next year we will also have two mechanics more than we had with Yamaha. One of them 🦄is an Aprilia mechanic and the 🌸other from Suzuki.”

Quizzed on his first impressions of the differe𒆙nce between working with Yamaha and April💙ia, Zeelenberg said:

“Communication-wise it’s a bit easier [with Aprili𓆉a]… Not just t🤪alking [language]. But also sometimes [with Yamaha] you would misunderstand each other. It's just a big difference in culture with the Japanese and that will never change.

“And with Italian♔s, it’s clearly directly about racing. ‘How do you want to have it, like this? OK, change’. Quicker actions and understꦓanding it's a championship at stake and it's directly about performance.”

'Pace is there to perform', important for Aprilia to understand other bikes

RNF’s first day as🌠 an Aprilia team ended with Oliveira an impressive fourth fastest at the Valencia test and Fernandez 1.3s from the top in 21st.

“I would say the pace is there to perfo🌳rm, but of course not everything is already exactly how we want,” Zeelenberg said.

Among those eager to hear the feedback o🍎f the new RNF riders was Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola, present in the RNF pit box.

“R๊iders remember things from their old bike for 3-4 days, then basically you forget everything about the old bike!” Zeelenberg smiled.

“So I think [for Aprilia] to have fresh riders coming from another manufacturer, it's very importan🦄t to understand w𒐪here other bikes are better or worse than the Aprilia - is it electronics? Is it acceleration? Is it wheelie? - and he [Rivola] was very keen on that.”

‘No more A, B and C spec’

During the Yamaha years, when Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli won six races, SRT recei🎀ved factory-spec M1s for one rider and A-spec bikes for 🌼the other.

Both RNF riders will use yeaꩵr-old Aprilias in 2023, but Zeelenberg doesn’t expe𝓡ct a big difference in performance.

“Okay, you can maybe pl🎶ay a little bit with RPM or whatever to make the bike safer [more milage]. But you don't have an A, B and C [engine] spec anymore,” Zeelenberg said. “It's all about electronics, aerodynamics and tyre 𒀰wear.”

Having a satellite MotoGP team꧒ is a new experience for Aprilia, might the factory use RNF to help race-develop new parts in the way that Ducati often does with Pramac?

“No, not as ‘test riders’ anyway, because both boys [Oliveira and Fernandez] are too ambitious🍷 to do that,” Zeelenberg said.

“With Cal [Crutchlow, who finished the 2022 season at RNF] 💝I have to ♈say, yeah he was trying things that were requested by Yamaha and he's a retired rider so he agreed. No problem at all.

“But I don't see us doing crazy things next year, that i🀅s a little bit out of the line. But of course, with four riders it gives you much more flexibility [to test different tyres and🐻 set-ups].”

RNF’s next te꧑st will be at Sepang in Malaysiℱa next February.