Fast from the opening♏ laps of its surprise public debut in the hands of test and wild-card rider Dani Pedrosa at Misano, KTM’s carbon fibre frame was then swiftly handed ♚to factory riders Brad Binder and Jack Miller from Motegi.

But a month before Pedrosa’s San Marino appearance, Aprilia had caused a stir by try💛ing a carbon fibre frame with Lore♍nzo Savadori during a private test.

Factory race riders Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales then tried it a🎃t the Misano post-race test, where Espargaro described it as ‘really differe🔯nt’.

“I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say but that the new frame is lighter and I felt also that it is a little bit more flexible, more soft, which is not really what the engineers were trying to do,” said Espargaro, who suff꧑ered a scare when he ran wide 𓆉and had to bail off the bike.

“It's a little bit better on the bumps - corners 1, 14, 15, 16 - but then it's a little bit more unstable [in others]. So we need to keep wor♋king.”

Unlike engine development, which is frozen for all manufacturers during 2023, there are n🌜o restrictions on th🍰e introduction of chassis changes.

Nevertheless, Espargaro and Vinales stuck with the RS-GP's usual aluminium frame for the remain🐠ing rounds before the carbon fibre made a return, in the hands of Savadori, at the Valencia tes🐲t.

“Carbon ꦆfibre is not our priority for 2024, we are just riding to analyse some information and receive new information. But we are focussed in another way,” Savadori said afterward🌟s.

“It’s the very beginning [of Aprilia's carbon fibre project]. We started to use it this summer and w🧸e need to test more.

“We need to understand some things better on the frame, it𝕴 has some positive aspects and there ജare also negatives. But it’s not the priority at the moment for Aprilia.”

Although KTM beat Aprilia to second in the constructors’ standings behind Du🎉cati and had a higher riders’ ranking (fourth for Binder vs sixth for Espargaro), Aprilia had the greater Grand Prix victory tally at 2-0.

Bef🉐ore Pedrosa at Misano, a carbon fibre chassis hadn’t be🧸en raced in MotoGP since Ducati from 2009-2011.