Aprilia MotoGP team to make full switch over to new frame at Motegi

First taken to a race at Silverstone last month, the new frame has been central Aprilia's progress with its RS-GP in recent grands prix.

Bautista started using it seriously at Misano a week later, where he made Q2 and finished 10th, while Bradl followed suit at Aragon, reaching the second phase of the qualifying for the first time this season.

The Bautista-led pair finished ninth and 10th at Aragon, but until now they have only had one of the new frames at their disposal.

From the first of the flyaway races at Motegi on October 14-16, they will each have two of the new frames to use during a weekend, Aprilia has confirmed.

"It gives some good braking stability, it has given me some better feedback entering the corner and that's the positive point," Bradl said of the update.

"I'm enjoying riding the bike and I have good feelings for the bike.

"This is something I didn't have so many times this year.

"We had some issues with the gearbox at Misano, so I had to use the older bike for qualifying and I made some good lap times, so I decided to go ahead with that one.

"It was a mistake, I would say, because I was struggling braking quite a lot at Misano, I lost a bit of positions and was not able to fight as I would have liked to."

After its first proper MotoGP bike was delayed in development, Aprilia has been playing catch-up this season, with some of its updates not hitting the mark.

Bautista says that while the new frame has aided progress, it starts a new wave of development.

"I'm happy because the step we are doing is very solid and what we are now doing in one weekend works in the next weekend," he said.

"We knew this direction some months ago, but for the frame we had it was impossible to try to follow it.

"Aprilia worked to make us the frame that we asked for. It's definitely the step we wanted to do.

"It's the right direction, now we need to continue, but the problem is with this frame we cannot go more in that direction.

"We need to make a new frame to continue improving this area."