Aprilia is returning to rally racing. According to a press release, the Noale racing division will return to its “true love,” the world of off-road racing. Aprilia debuted in the world of national and international competitions, and its new Tuareg 660 will be developed on experience gained in rally competition.

雅格布Cerutti骑手将th耐力长跑和集会e Italian manufacturer’s rally project. Cerutti has multiple Italian Rally wins to his name and four Italian and one European enduro titles. The Italian will rely upon those titles and his six Dakar entries to help develop the Tuareg to try for more rally victories.

In addition, Francesco Montanari, a national-level enduro rider, will help to support the Aprilia rally effort. Montanari showed his capabilities with a promising rookie performance at the Tricolore Motorally last year.

Aprilia calls its resurrected rally effort the “Back To Africa Project.” Massimo Rivola, Aprilia Racing CEO, says that while they want to continue in on-track GP racing, they are also embarking in other areas, the Back To Africa Project included:

“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”.

Romano Albesiano, Aprilia’s Racing Technical Director, says that Aprilia wants to add to its previous Dakar Rally stage win, saying:

“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”.

作为Aprilia回到非洲课题的开始am, the Aprilia Tuareg 660’s development will be in conjunction with technical input from GCorse (brothers Gianfranco and Vittoriano Guareschi), who already have experience with the Tuareg. They supported Aprilia during the 2022 iteration of the Italian Motorally Championship.

In addition, Aprilia says it will also attend all of the 2023 Italian Motorally events to support competitors competing in the rally’s new GPX “entry-level” rally category.

It will be interesting to see how Aprilia’s Back To Africa project works out. If they achieve some success, could they be considering a 450cc single to compete in Dakar? Time will tell.