APRILIA RS-GP
Aprilia Racing: Aleix Espargaro and Lorenzo Savadori
APriLia are ConfidenT of making major steps forward in 2021, after their début season with their 90-degree rs-GP being knobbled by CoVid-19. The pandemic affected everyone in MotoGP, but aprilia were the worst hit.
Last summer, MotoGP reacted to the economic fallout of the pandemic by banning all engine and aero upgrades. in more normal times, aprilia would have benefited from their MotoGP concessions, which should have allowed them to upgrade their engine and aero during the season, unlike the top factories. however, the upgrade ban included aprilia, a huge negative when they had a completely new engine.
‘everything was frozen, so we couldn’t implement any engine improvements, except increasing rpm a bit,’ says Chief engineer romano albesiano. The ban on aero upgrades also hit aprilia hard. ‘we planned to start last season with a very low downforce aero configuration, with the aim of introducing higher downforce aero later,’ adds albesiano. ‘but we were stuck with the low downforce, so we had problems with too much wheelie.’
and yet the 2020 rs-GP’s best results were impressive. at brno, Misano, and Valencia, espargaro finished 15 seconds behind the winner, more than halving his 2019 deficits at those tracks.
Thus, there is no doubt aprilia made the right decision to abandon their 75-degree V4 in favour of a 90-degree V4, as already used by ducati, honda, and KTM.
‘The 90-degree engine is a solution that’s more open to experimenting with different firing orders,’ adds albesiano. ‘also, it allows a simpler exhaust layout, which helps us in implementing the exhaust valves, which has improved enginebraking character.’
The 2020 rs-GP was quick, clocking 214 mph (344 km/h) at aragon, just 1.7 mph (2.7 km/h) behind the fastest bikes. The 2021 iteration has brand-new cylinder-heads, plus aero and chassis upgrades to improve acceleration performance.
‘we call the first part of acceleration the griplimited phase,’ explains albesiano. ‘sometimes our riders say the engine isn’t pushing, but then we check the data and see that they have the throttle only 35 per cent open, so we have to explain to them that it’s not the engine, it’s that the bike cannot put the power to the ground. after grip, the next limitation is wheelie.’