Massimo Rivola has railed against a perceived lack of respect for rider contracts as speculation swirls that Honda is on the hunt for an established star to replace Marc Márquez.
Márquez told Honda last week that he will break his contract one year early to join Ducati factory team Gresini, having grown fed up with the Japanese marque’s lack of competitiveness.
The six-time MotoGP champion had signed a four-year deal starting 2021 on reportedly the most lucrative terms in the sport’s history. The move will come with as much as a 98.5 per cent cut to his pay.
The Spaniard revealed this week that he had informed Honda last Wednesday. It left the team with no time to involve itself in the rider market, with every rider bar Fabio di Giannantonio already committed to their team until at least the end of next season. Di Giannantonio has been displaced at Gresini by Márquez’s arrival.
Instead the Japanese giant is rumoured to be sounding out several riders about potentially buying them out of their current deals to fill the void left alongside incumbent Joan Mir.
Both factory Aprilia rider Maverick Viñales and satellite RNF star Miguel Oliveira have been connected to the ride.
It’s a suggestion that has incensed Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola in an interview with The Race.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “The only thing I can say is they have contracts, they go nowhere.”
The status of MotoGP rider contracts — as well as those in the lower classes — has long been a topic for discussion in the grand prix paddock, with teams and riders regularly breaking deals based on convenience and circumstance.
Just this week KTM dumped Pol Espargaró to make room for Moto2 phenom Pedro Acosta at Gas Gas for 2024, having signed both up to deals only to discover MotoGP wouldn’t grant the Austrian marque two additional bikes on the grid.
Unlike other sports, most notably Formula 1, MotoGP has no central contract authority to govern deals between teams and riders. It means less established riders and those in the lower classes are at a particular disadvantage when they’re unable to retain legal advice to fight termination.
In F1 any party to a contract can take a dispute to the FIA’s contract recognition board, whose rulings are final. The CRB validated Oscar Piastri’s McLaren contract despite protests from Alpine last year, for example.
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Rivola, who was sporting director at F1 teams Minardi, Toro Rosso and Ferrari before becoming Aprilia CEO, said he was dismayed by the lack of respect shown to contracts in MotoGP relative to its four-wheel premier-class counterpart.
“The bad message that is coming out is that contracts are useless, and paper to clean the arse,” he told The Race. “In my world a contract is very serious stuff.
“They regulate the deal, the wedding, the marriage, between two parties, and unless there is something exceptional where one of the two parties says, ‘Okay, I had enough’ — something like that, they want a divorce — I don’t see no reason why [a contract would be broken].”
Rivola said he would fight to keep all four of his current riders on Aprilia machines for next season.
“I wanted to have these riders and I want to continue with those riders,” he said. “I do my best to provide them the best possible bike and I do my best to make them happy and I do my best that they perform at the top.
“I mean, nothing against Honda, because Honda never came to me to ask, I don’t know if this is true or not.
“In fact I still haven’t had the chance to speak to Miguel!
“It’s part of the game of course, but it’s not nice that there are a lot of rumours about riders under contract. This is something that I don’t like.
“But I know that eventually this is something that in MotoGP is common after what happened to our competitors.”
Speaking ahead of the weekend, Oliveira refused to deny a potential interest in exploring a connection to Honda.
“I think this season we have seen a lot of unprecedented things,” he said, per MotoMatters. “We’ve seen riders put at home with contracts. We’ve seen riders breaking contracts and go to another places.
“Anything is possible. It’s true that it’s a pleasure to be considered to another manufacturer, such as big as Honda, especially when there’s a factory seat to offer. That’s it.”
Viñales denied that he’d been approached during the week but left the door open to a possible conversation.
“At this moment I didn’t hear nothing, but it’s always good to be open, to listen and to understand,” he said, per MotoMatters. “My commitment right now is 100 per cent with Aprilia.”
