Next year at KTM, Johann Zarco will no longer work with Guy Coulon but with Marcus Eschenbacher, until now technical manager for Aleix Espargaro at Aprilia (see here).
Until now because, according to the press release from the Italian firm, Marcus Eschenbacher is replaced this weekend in Misano by Pietro Caprara, who previously served as technical director and team leader of the Sky VR46 team.
“In the Aprilia box, in addition to the usual technical updates, we note the arrival of Pietro Caprara alongside Aleix Espargaró, of whom he will be the chief technician until the end of the season.”
Dissatisfaction with the work done so far by Marcus Eschenbacher or a desire not to divulge possible technical secrets to the person who will no longer be there next year, no one knows.
We will still note that immediately after the Grand Prix, Aprilia will remain on the Misano circuit to do private tests with, we hope, some serious updates.
From there to thinking that Aprilia does not want its development to be in the hands of someone who will work at KTM in 2 months, there is only one step that we are not far from taking... even if the he Italian team currently seems to be going through a crisis.
So, Marcus Eschenbacher will have more time to familiarize himself with a KTM RC16 that he doesn't know at all.
Here again, we are very far from the encyclopedic knowledge of Guy Coulon on the Yamaha M1…
