Davide Brivio Ranks Ai Ogura Among MotoGP Elite

Davide Brivio has ranked Ai Ogura among the best riders he has worked with after the Japanese rider secured his maiden MotoGP victory at the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix. The assessment carries considerable weight given Brivio’s previous world championship success with Valentino Rossi and Joan Mir, as well as his role in providing MotoGP opportunities to several other race winners.

According to a report by Peter McLaren on July 1, 2026, Brivio faced criticism when he initially selected Ogura to join Trackhouse MotoGP Team as a rookie in 2025. Ogura quickly answered those doubts with two top-five results on his debut weekend as the leading Aprilia rider, before several injuries forced him to reset his progress at different stages of his first season.

Ogura’s development continued into 2026. He matched his career-best finishes at the opening round in Thailand and then claimed his first podium at Le Mans after a technical issue had disrupted his weekend at COTA. Once his qualifying difficulties were resolved, Ogura produced a sequence of three consecutive second-place finishes before converting that momentum into victory at Assen.

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“Honestly speaking, Ai is one of the best riders I ever worked with. There are a few, but he is for sure one of the riders that I will keep in my memory for a long time,” Brivio said after Ogura’s victory.

Brivio believes Ogura’s principal strength is his gradual and consistent approach to improvement. He said the Japanese rider rarely takes a backward step in his development, even when injuries force him to rebuild momentum. Rather than relying on sudden or explosive gains, Ogura accumulates experience, studies the motorcycle and applies each lesson systematically from one race weekend to the next.

The Assen victory also completed a dominant weekend for Trackhouse. Ogura led a one-two finish in the grand prix alongside team-mate Raul Fernandez, who had already won the Sprint. Brivio highlighted how effectively both riders exploited the potential of the RS-GP package, with Ogura improving his Sprint performance by approximately 14 seconds compared with his 2025 result.

“Ai is using all the potential of the bike brilliantly. But the same applies to Raul because they were so close in performance. Raul won on Saturday and Ai won on Sunday, so they are both at a very good level with this great technical package,” Brivio said.

Ogura now occupies fourth place in the world championship, 25 points behind new leader Jorge Martin, while Fernandez sits sixth and 55 points from the top. Both Ogura and Brivio will leave Trackhouse after the season, with the rider already confirmed at Yamaha for 2027 and Brivio set to take a senior commercial role at HRC. Before those moves take effect, the Assen performance demonstrated that Ogura’s development and Aprilia’s technical progress have placed Trackhouse in a position to influence the championship fight during the second half of the season.