Riotorto (Livorno), 3 April 2023 – Aprilia Racing’s brand new project aimed at bringing the Aprilia brand back to big raid rallies starts off in the best of ways. At his début astride the Aprilia Tuareg 660, Jacopo Cerutti dominated all three race days which included the first two trials of the Italian Motorally Championship and the first trial of the Tricolore Raid TT, held this weekend in Riotorto, province of Livorno.

The Tuareg 660 – Cerutti duo had no rivals in the G-1000 category, reserved for multiple engine displacements besides 600 cc. After finishing ahead of the rest on Friday, valid for the Italian Raid TT Championship, the brilliant rider from Como astonished everyone with a peremptory brace in the prestigious Tricolore Motorally, unleashing an extraordinary performance, so much to contend for the overall victory over the much lighter single-cylinder enduro bikes.

In fact, Cerutti finished the Saturday rally in second position overall – just 25” from a win which would have been unprecedented for a twin-cylinder bike – and in fifth place overall on Sunday. This performance is a testament to the outstanding off-road base features of the Tuareg 660, as well as to the great job accomplished by Aprilia Racing and GCorse.

Aprilia Racing’s second Tuareg 660, entrusted to Francesco Montanari, was also a protagonist with a third-place finish in the Raid TT on Friday, with the podium replicated the following day in the first trial of the Italian Motorally. Montanari then finished the day on Sunday in seventh place, hindered by a penalty.

“I’m extremely happy! I didn’t expect to be so high in the standings straight away! It is a great source of pride for me to have been able to win at the Tuareg’s début. We knew that we were competitive and I expected to be able to make a play for the win against the other twin-cylinders, but even being a threat to the specialised enduro bikes was a big surprise. We won even coming close to clinching the overall title and that is a clear demonstration of the bike’s potential, which is extremely high. The Tuareg 660 handles extremely well and rides great on mixed terrain and this characteristic helped me a lot in the special stages – very technical – which we tackled over the weekend. We’ll need to work ahead of the upcoming races with more flowing tracks, but we already know what we have to do to perform well even on the fast stretches. Competing helps us understand where to focus in order to make even more progress in view of our future commitments. Our development work has only just begun!”

“I am satisfied because I started well straight away with third place on Friday and another third in the first trial of the Motorally on Saturday, despite a few mistakes reading the roadbook. On Sunday, in the second trial, I lost a bit of time due to a crash, but the important thing is that my weekend went on an upward trend. We worked well, making a few changes to the suspension, and now I have an outstanding feeling with the bike. I had a lot of fun riding. I feel like I can push when it’s necessary and Jacopo showed that our potential is extremely high. Being on the team with him is just mad motivation. I can’t wait to tackle the next round to try and stay even higher!”

In Riotorto, the Aprilia Tuareg 660 proved to be a great protagonist straight away in the fledgling Italian GPX Championship as well, a rally format with simplified navigation – through GPS tracking – created this year to make the discipline accessible to the many off-road fans. Participating with basically a stock Tuareg 660, outfitted only with the minimum modifications required to tackle a competition, Paolo Pettinari took the win in the second of the three trials scheduled on the Tuscan weekend.
Yet another victory that demonstrates how much the Tuareg 660 is actually the new point of reference among twin-cylinder adventure bikes for all enthusiasts looking for a motorcycle with which to approach off-road racing in the easiest and most fun way.
Precisely for this reason, Aprilia will be on the paddock of the Italian Motorally with its own structure to provide support for all those who intend to participate in the GPX Championship astride a Tuareg 660.

Verona, 27th January 2023 – Aprilia is preparing for a return to the top rally raids in 2024: an ambitious project that will be overseen by Aprilia Racing, thereby repeating the successful experience of Aprilia's previous participation in Dakar, 2010-2012.

The Noale racing division returns to its true love, the world of off-road racing that marked Aprilia's début in the world of national and international competitions, as it develops the new Aprilia Tuareg 660, a bike whose very name underscores its calling and destiny.

The Aprilia Tuareg project will be overseen by Jacopo Cerutti, 1989, who brings his own extensive experience to Aprilia Racing development: the rider from Como has multiple Italian Motorally wins to his name, as well as bringing home four Italian and one European Enduro titles and having participated in Dakar six times already. He will be backed by Francesco Montanari, a national-level Enduro rider who achieved a great rookie performance at the Tricolore Motorally last year.

“With its ‘Back to Africa’ project Aprilia Racing is returning to the world of off-road racing, to the races that forged the division. We want to keep growing in the world of Grand Prix motorcycle racing and in on-track races. We want to discover new talent through our SP 250 Championship and the RS 660 Trophy, but we are also embarking on a completely new project with the extraordinary Aprilia Tuareg. It's an additional sign of development for a racing division that has grown significantly over the past years achieving results never before seen by Aprilia”.

“We are picking up the baton from a history of great successes. Aprilia is the only Italian brand to have won a stage of the Dakar Rally, and in 2010 we took the last podium in the overall ranking. These are just the first steps in a completely new project, and the purpose of the 2023 season will be to start us on the path that will take us back to the great desert races, but one thing is certain, the bike will be forged from the values that have always marked Aprilia's racing endeavours, i.e. innovation in the service of performance”.

“I'm very happy to be a part of this project, to work with a brand that's 100% Italian and that has such a great history in sports is a source of great pride. This will be a new challenge for me, coming from experience with the Enduro 450. I will be riding a twin with enormous potential and will have a key role to play in development. It's an exceptional opportunity for a rider, and I can't wait to start”.

The racing version of the new Aprilia Tuareg 660 will be developed by Aprilia Racing with technical input from GCorse (brother's Gianfranco and Vittoriano Guareschi), who already worked on the Tuareg taking part in the Italian Motorally Championship over the course of 2022. Involvement in the Tricolore Motorally will continue in 2023, a season that will be entirely focused on developing a project that has shown enormous potential right from the start. The starting line will feature two Tuareg 660s entrusted to Cerutti and Montanari.

Alongside Aprilia Racing's Tuareg project, Aprilia will also be present at the venues of the 2023 Italian Motorally to provide support for all those riding a Tuareg 660 in the new GPX “entry level” category, which was specifically created to make the Championship more accessible.

Aprilia remains true to its mission of introducing enthusiasts to the world of motorcycles, an objective it has been pursuing for years with the Italian FMI Aprilia Sport Production Championship and the Aprilia RS 660 Trophy.

Off-road races marked Aprilia's début in the world of racing, which is no surprise for a brand that had already revealed its off-roading soul with early models like the Scarabeo (produced in the '70s). The first racing motorcycle manufactured in 1974 in Noale was a 125cc cross. The brand earned its first titles in the 125cc and 250cc categories in 1977. In 1978 it stepped onto the podium and into the limelight of Motocross Championships.

Aprilia Racing made its foray into the adventurous world of the Motorcycle World Championship in 1985, but would earn its first championship title in 1992. The world of off-road racing provided another seven world championship titles with the twin-cylinder SXV 450 and 550 taking home three Supermoto Championship titles in the Rider category and four in the Manufacturer category from 2004 to 2011.

After its first epic appearance in the Paris-Dakar with the Tuareg in 1989, Aprilia returned to the great desert race in 2010 with a revolutionary RXV Rally 450 twin that would participate in three consecutive editions of the Dakar from 2010 to 2012. The spectacular Rally immediately earned three stage victories and took third place overall in 2010, narrowly missing the glorious objective of a rookie triumph.

Aprilia remains the only Italian manufacturer to have won a stage at the Dakar, in 2012.