Romano Albesiano, Sporting Managing Director of Aprilia, is at Brno this weekend and motogp.com caught up with the Italian about the company’s MotoGP™ plans.

Romano has spoken this year of Aprilia’s intention to return to the premier class with a full factory entry in 2016, but now acknowledges that the re-entry into MotoGP could be brought forward.

Whether that is with a factory team in 2015 or as a supplier to a current team remains to be seen, but Albesiano stated, “We originally planned to come back to MotoGP in 2016 and then in the recent period we started to consider rejoining MotoGP earlier, so next year. Day by day we are considering this option more and it is more likely to happen. So we are very close to taking the decision.”

He added, “The plan is to make a big step compared to the bike we are running now, with pneumatic valve. The engine bore will be the maximum allowed by the rules. We are developing our own technology for the seamless. The general package of the motorcycle will make a step in terms of size and weight distribution for 2015, which will still be a laboratory bike. Because we are designing a totally new bike and engine, really everything will be new. This big step would be for 2016, but we are designing now, to start testing next year for 2016.”