Without incidents and penalties, Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi may well have won the last four MotoGP races in a row.

Instead, he’s had to be content with a pair of Sprint victories, in Mandalika and Phillip Island, plus third place in last Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

This weekend’s Malaysian round starts without a double long lap penalty hanging over the Italian, but he was keen to play down the favourite tag on Thursday at Sepang.

“Well, it’s difficult to say. Of course, we’ve been very competitive in the last couple of GPs, but every track is a little bit different,” said Bezzecchi.

“Actually, I’m super happy to be here because it’s the only track where I have a bit of reference from the testing [in February] and I have to say that we were struggling a bit.

“So I’m very curious to see what the first reaction of the bike will be and the first sensations at this amazing track.

“Hopefully, we can do another good weekend.”

Bezzecchi was only ninth fastest at the end of the winter test, overshadowed by injuries to superstar team-mate Jorge Martin.

Nonetheless, Bezzecchi has gone on to claim four race wins – at the British GP, plus Misano, Mandalika and Phillip Island – alongside a new Aprilia high of seven Sunday podiums.

That’s also carried the Italian to third in the world championship, by eight points over Ducati Francesco Bagnaia.

What has been the key improvement?

“Regarding the riding, I had to change many, many things because every bike has its own strong and weak points,” Bezzecchi explained. “So I had to adapt my style to the Aprilia and work a lot to change a bit my [reflexes] on the riding.

“But also all the engineers and all the guys working for Aprilia did an amazing job. We’ve been working super hard since the beginning and they also made many, many improvements on the bike.

“So it’s difficult to tell you only one. Maybe for my personal point of view, the one that helped me the most was the stability in braking.”

That braking stability meant the RS-GP wasn’t just good in fast corners, as illustrated by victories for Bezzecchi and Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez at Phillip Island, but could hold its own on stop-and-go tracks.

“I’m happy, of course,” Bezzecchi said of the late season progress. “All the team and all the factory are also happy. But still, we have three rounds to go.

“We have to enjoy the moment, of course, but also we have to stay focused to try to keep improving and keep working in the right direction to also build a good base for next year.”

Aprilia didn’t just have two new factory riders this season, but a new technical director in Fabio Sterlacchini, after Romano Albesiano switched to Honda.

“Personally, first of all he a super intelligent person in general, not just on the motorbike side, but you can speak about everything,” Bezzecchi said of Sterlacchini.

“This is super cool because also having a conversation outside of racing is super nice with him.

“In terms of racing, for sure, his know-how is super big and he has a lot of experience. But he also has a nice character, so he doesn’t put you in a difficult situation.”

Bezzecchi revealed he sometimes felt intimidated when interacting with MotoGP engineers.

“When I speak with some engineers, I feel a bit less than them, in terms of knowledge, let’s say. With Fabiano, it’s super different,” Bezzecchi said.

“He has a lot of experience, and he’s super calm, super professional. And I feel very good with him.”

Test rider Lorenzo Savadori will continue to replace the injured Martin this weekend.