TRACKHOUSE SAYS APRILIA PARTNERSHIP IS BUILT AROUND SHARED SUCCESS, NOT CUSTOMER STATUS

Trackhouse’s recent momentum in MotoGP has been framed by team owner Justin Marks as the product of a deliberate, long-term partnership with Aprilia—one he insists is built on collaboration rather than a traditional customer-team relationship. Speaking after Raul Fernandez’s victory at Silverstone, Marks pointed to the way Trackhouse and Aprilia have worked together as a key factor behind the team’s progress.

Marks said he made his preferred vision clear to Aprilia Racing Director Massimo Rivola from their earliest discussions. “The relationship with Aprilia is really good,” Marks recalled, explaining that he told Rivola immediately what kind of arrangement he wanted. In his view, the usual separation between a factory squad and a satellite team should not define how the two sides operate. “I said to him: I don’t want us to think in categories of factory team and satellite team. I want two teams that work together like team-mates, to bring four bikes into the top-4 for Aprilia in every race.”

That philosophy, Marks added, extends beyond the track. He described a technical and commercial alignment in which the teams share the same material, engineers communicate directly, and there is commercial support. “That means we have the same material, that the engineers communicate with each other, and that there is commercial support— all those things,” he said.

Marks also credited Aprilia and Rivola with embracing the same approach. “Fortunately it matched Massimo’s way of thinking and Aprilia’s way of thinking,” he said. “They understood what we wanted to achieve. They understood that this is a partnership where we are not a customer, but a partner for shared success.”

While Trackhouse and Aprilia compete on track, Marks emphasized that the relationship remains strong even when results put them in direct contention. After Fernandez’s win, he described the atmosphere from the Aprilia side: “After races like today, the Aprilia people put an arm around our guys.” He acknowledged, however, that the dynamic could change if both teams are fighting for the championship at the season finale. “When we come to Valencia and we’re fighting for the world championship against Marco or Jorge, I don’t know what it will look like,” he said, referring to Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin. Even then, Marks insisted the core message would remain: “On the race track we are competitors; off the race track we are partners.”

For Marks, Trackhouse’s rise is not something that happened overnight. He said the team’s principles were established when they entered MotoGP, with an emphasis on building a culture and giving staff and riders the tools to unlock their potential. “We wanted to create a culture in the team and give everyone the tools they need for success,” he said. He also stressed that the team’s satellite status should not limit expectations: “Yes, we are not a factory team. But we have a great relationship with Aprilia and great riders.”

Patience has been central to that process. Marks argued that the sport’s difficulty and unpredictability can make progress look deceptively simple once it finally shows up in results. “It takes time. This sport is incredibly difficult and professional motorsport is extremely unpredictable,” he said. “Now being at a point where we can win in this way might look like it happened easily. But the work started two and a half years ago.”

Asked to define what success means, Marks said Trackhouse does not measure itself only by trophies or championship positions. He called current results “the tip of the iceberg,” adding that the team’s approach is heavily team-focused. “That’s just the top of the iceberg,” he said. “We approached racing very consciously and very cohesively. Our approach is very strongly team-oriented.”

Instead of setting goals around winning or a specific championship placement, Marks said Trackhouse uses a different internal yardstick: “We talk about being relevant.” He explained that winning involves too many variables outside anyone’s control, so the team avoids defining targets purely in terms of world championships or race victories. “There are simply too many variables in winning that you can’t control,” he said.

In Marks’s view, the most important metric is the quality of the work itself, with results expected to follow. “Success means continuing to learn and gaining more and more trust in what role we can play in this sport,” he said. Looking at the season so far, his interim assessment was positive, and he suggested that even if the campaign ended immediately, it would already represent a major achievement: “If the season ended today, it would already be a huge success.”