Loris Capirossi
In 1998, the Aprilia RS250 was reaching its pinnacle and had a team of riders in Rossi, Loris Capirossi and Tetsuya Harada. Rossi's year started off poor, retiring in the first two rounds: Japan and Malaysia. He came back from this by scoring three consecutive second places in Spain, Italy and France, but retired once more at the Madrid round.