Milwaukee Aprilia have made some fundamental personnel changes over the winter after a disappointing 2017 WorldSBK season. Despite having official support and development direct from Aprilia, and with the Noale manufacturer’s personnel embedded in the team throughout the season, the 2017 results were nowhere near what team owner Shaun Muir had expected.

Now, having taken over a more direct role inside the team’s operations, Muir explained the makeup of the 2018 squad compared to the 2017 version.

“Year on year we have had some quite big fundamental changes in manufacturers and riders, so one thing I wanted to keep straightforward was manufacturer and riders the same for this season,” Muir told bikesportnews.com on the first day of the Jerez tests.

“I wanted a more direct, harder, involvement at every level inside the team. I changed things over on the crew-chief side. I kept Phil Marron with Eugene Laverty. There were issues with the Aprilia staff that I was not happy with so I have changed that around. I have moved some people out and told Aprilia there were guys I did not want in the team and some of the guys wanted in the team.

"Those changes have been made and Lorenzo Savadori has a new chief, who is fluent in Italian and has a lot of WorldSBK experience – Lucio Gomes. We also have different Aprilia engineers, one who worked with Lorenzo in the Ioda team some years before. So there is some continuity there. I have kept the guys on the tools virtually the same on his side.”

The overall set-up of the RSV-4 will also undergo changes for 2018. “I have also brought over another Aprilia engineer, to work with Eugene, more works with his temperament,” said Muir. “Quite a lot harder and more forceful in the direction we need to go with. Those are the personnel changes.”

The relationship with Aprilia was difficult for the British team at times in 2017: “I have had a bit more of a fight with Aprilia to get them to move more into an area with the bike that we can develop better and quicker. There was a lot of panic set-in with those guys.

"I wasn’t happy probably after the first two or three races, when we realised that they were in trouble. It was not us realising we were in trouble. I think the package that we got was just was not good enough. We can get it closer, and we will get it closer, but we were not going to get it closer if we left it the way it was last year.”