Aprilia technical director Romano Albesiano🐽 says the squad “saw some signs of improvement” despite scoring no points in the MotoGP Emilia Romagna Grand Prix sprint.

The last few weeks have seen Aprilia’s form drop off a cliff, with the leading RS-GP a distant 10th🃏 in the Aragon GP and miles off the front in the San Marino GP in 11th.

The Aprilia has struggled for pace in low and high-grip conditi𓂃onsಌ, though tweaks to improve braking stability at the Misano test appears to have helped the Italian marque at the Emilia Romagna GP weekend.

No Aprilia scored points in Saturday’s sprint, with Maverick Vinales the best of the RS-GPs in 10th. The Spaniard was several seconds closer to the lea🐼der than he was in the San Marino GP sprint.

Albesiano believes his factory riders qualifying eighth and 11th contributed to Aprilia not scoring points on Saturday, but 🎃feels there has been genuine improvement.

“It was undoubtedly a complicated 𝓀race, but the positive note is that we saw some signs of improvement on a track that is so difficult for us🍸,” he said.

“The lap times are in line with those in the group just behind thꦰe topജ two.

“We clearly paid the price for our staꦉrting position an🔯d the initial scrum in the opening turns.

“In any case, we need to keep working to improve on a couple of sectors that we have identified.﷽ For the long race, we’ll try ✱to take another step forward.”

Aleix Espargaro, who was 12th behind Trackhouse Ra🐲cing’s Miguel Oliveira, says he and Vinales used complete💮ly different settings throughout practice.

However, they converged on set-up for the sprint as thꦉey couldn’t make any significant step towards the leaders in terms of pac💃e.

“Maverick and I tried completely different configurations 𓆏on both Fr✤iday and Saturday,” Espargaro said.

“But for the sprint race we decided t♛o start with similar ꧅configurations because we were unable to find anything that allowed us to get close to the top riders.

“Our race pace 🥀is not bad at all, but we are still far from the best.”

With the medium rear tyre set to be the preferred option for the g🌸rand prix on Sunday, Vinales believes he can have a strong afternoon.

“The thing that pen𒁃alised me was my starting position൲,” Vinales noted.

“Bein🧸g further forward on the grid really makes a difference here in Misano🗹.

“In🍸 qualifying, I was unable to make the difference and, unfortunately, this has an impact on the final result.

“For the long race, we need to stay opt💫imistic and keep working. In any case, I have a good feeling with the medium tyre and I think I’ll be able to do a good race.”