Aprilia’s MotoGP aero: ‘It’s a new world, like when Columbus went to America!’ 

“The first thing is to learn what happened during the last part of last season because during the first part of the season we were always strong, always on the podium,” the 33-year-old told me last November. “But the last part of the season was a disaster and we still don’t fully understand what happened.

“The second thing is pure power. And the third is rear grip because we can’t load the rear enough to create grip during braking, so we are paying on the brakes because we can’t use the engine braking because the tyre isn’t pushing into the ground. It’s the same thing in acceleration – we don’t have grip.”

More power may come from Aprilia’s latest patent, for a mechanical variable valve timing system. Electronic and hydraulic adjustable VVT systems are banned in MotoGP, which is why Suzuki equipped its GSX-RR with mechanical VVT a few years ago. Aprilia’s new system is different, hence the patent.

Variable valve timing won’t necessarily offer more peak power, but it allows you to tune for more high-rpm power, without losing the gentle, mid-range power that’s so important in motorcycle racing, for accelerating from the edge of the rear tyre. Essentially it’s the same idea as the adjustable exhaust valves and expansion chamber volume systems that appeared on two-stroke 500cc GP bikes in the early 1980s.

Aprilia’s growing strength in MotoGP was proved throughout 2022. Ducati may lead the way in downforce aerodynamics, but Aprilia was the first to use seat aero (to increase downforce on the rear tyre), during May’s Italian GP, with Ducati following suit at the British GP in August. Aprilia was also the first with a ground-effect fairing, introduced at Assen. Ducati tried a similar fairing during post-season tests at Valencia – and when Ducati copies you, it means you’re doing something right.

The final proof of the factory’s strength was RNF’s decision to quit Yamaha and lease RS-GP machines for its new riders Miguel Oliveira and Raúl Fernández. Oliveira was delighted with the bike during post-season tests and may pull some surprises.

At Valencia last September I sat down with Aprilia’s MotoGP technical director Romano Albesiano to ask him about the 2022 season and his hopes for 2023…

Mat Oxley: What were the positives and negatives of the RS-GP’s performance in 2022?

Albesiano: There wasn’t one big item we developed, so it’s been a general increase of performance, on the engine side, the chassis side, in the aerodynamics and in the way we work on track to optimise all the parameters, which is a vital factor. The weak point has been the consistency of performance, because we had a few races where the performance wasn’t aligned with the rest of the season, which was a surprise for us.

What was the reason for this?

The riders always say grip. This [the four consecutive flyaway races] was most the negative moment of the season and we don’t yet have a clear understanding of those few races where we had poor performance. The rest of the season was generally good.

What are your priorities for the 2023 bike?

The step forward we made with the 2022 engine helped a lot but we have to keep increasing performance, so for 2023 we expect an increase in engine performance.

At the moment most MotoGP engineers talk more about turning than anything else – getting the bike stopped and turned quickly, so the rider can pick up the bike and get on throttle, so in fact turning is also acceleration…

Yes and this is one of the not-so-consistent attitudes of our bike. According to rider comments, most of the time our bike turns quite well, sometimes very well, but sometimes it lacks some turning. This isn’t related to the motorcycle, to the metal, it’s more related to how the bike is set, in terms of suspension, tyre parameters and the way the bike stops. Because if the bike doesn’t stop it won’t turn. This a lesson we’ve learned and this is one area where we have to do more.

You’ve had some problems in straight-line braking, is that still an issue?

In the past we did but now it’s not so bad, but we still have some limitations in high-speed braking.

Is that an engine-braking thing, using rear grip?

In braking you have three phases. The very first part is when you still have weight on the rear tyre, so you can exploit that to help stop the bike. The next part is when the rider is really pulling the front brake lever, so there’s almost no weight on the rear, so there’s no rear-braking effect. Then when the rider starts releasing the brake and using some lean angle that puts load on the rear tyre and this is the most important area, where you have to be perfect.

This is the key for performance, the first target for everybody. Sometimes we are good in this area, sometimes we are maybe not perfect, but everybody is so close that it’s very difficult.

Aprilia is hiring engineers from Formula 1 – how has that helped your success?

Yes, we have people coming from car racing, in our aerodynamics department, in general from Ferrari. The level of development of aerodynamics in car racing is unbelievable, so these people have been very clever to adapt to motorcycles. I’ve seen many people coming from the car industry to the motorcycle industry and for many of them it’s very difficult to change their minds, but our guys have been good.

It must be exciting for them, because F1 is very complex, but motorcycles are more complicated, especially aerodynamically…

It’s a new world for them, like when Columbus went to America! [Yes, we all know the Vikings got there first.] It’s a new world, nobody has been there before, so you can really make something new, not just optimising things, but really discovering something. It’s really exciting.

What happened to you at those four flyaways: Japan, Thailand, Australia and Malaysia?

We had the incident at Motegi, which was a really trivial mistake, just click of a mouse, basically. OK, we can improve our procedures in these areas and we will do that for sure. But what happened at Motegi was like a hammer blow for us.

Then in Thailand we had trouble with grip, the first time, so this was very surprising and this is one of the two races we still need to understand. Then at Phillip Island we had quite good race, except for a detail in the traction-control setting, which was a small mistake. Nobody is perfect. Then Malaysia is the second race to understand. For sure Aleix expected more because we were so fast in winter testing. That’s the point I mentioned earlier – we need to understand these races to have a more solid, consistent performance in the future.

How has Aprilia got stronger in the last few years, since introducing the 90-degree vee engine?

Honestly, the company has invested a lot more in recent seasons. This allowed us to hire the people we were talking about before and have more material and more engines to do development.