Aprilia technical director Romano Albesiano says the squad “saw some signs of improvement” despite scoring noꦛ 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 10t🎶h in the Aragon GP and m🐠iles off the front in the San Marino GP in 11th.

The Aprilia has struggled for pace in low and high-grip conditions, though tweaks to improve braki🐷ng sta൩bility 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 leader 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 genuin♊e improvement.

“It was undo🎀ubtedly a complicated race, but the positive note is that 🅘we saw some signs of improvement on a track that is so difficult for us,” he said.

“T💫he lap times are in line with those in🐻 the group just behind the top two.

“We clearly paid th𒅌e price for our staꦦrting position and 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 identif🅷ied. For 🌞the long race, we’ll try to take another step forward.”

Aleix Espargaro, who was 12th behind Trackhouse Racing’s Mi💙guel Oliveir🤡a, says he and Vinales used completely different settings throughout practice.

However, they converged on set-up for the sprint as they co💖uldn’t make any significant step towards the leaders in terms of pace.

“Maverick and I tried complet🎃ely different configurations on both Friday and Saturday,” Esparga𓃲ro said.

“But for the sprint race wꦡe decided to 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 grand prix on Sunday, Vinales believes he can have a stron🔜g afternoon.

“Tﷺhe thing that penalised me was my starting positi💛on,” Vinales noted.

“Being further forward on the🌃 grid really makes a differ🔴ence here in Misano.

“In qualifying, I was unable to make the differenc🦂e and, unfortunatel🔯y, this has an impact on the final result.

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