Over the past year, Aprilia’s MotoGP project has made huge strides forward, jumping from the middle of the pack and with frequent reliability problems to seeing Aleix Espargaro seemingly on the edge of podium success.
But there’s still something missing – and the solution could be just around the corner for the Italian team, with an engine upgrade expected next month.
Espargaro was only denied a podium in the final seconds of last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix when his gamble to remain on a wet track on slick tyres didn’t quite pay off.
Yet while he rolled the dice in the rainy conditions, he still wasn’t quite there in the dry as Aprilia continues to struggle in one particular area: engine power.
Huge improvements have come since the switch from a 72-degree V4 engine configuration to the 90-degree model Aprilia introduced at the start of the 2020 season, and the team has managed to make significant inroads on straightline speed.
The engine was brought in at the start of 2020 and looked very strong in testing, but Aprilia struggled to take a step forward when the delayed race season started thanks to a lack of time to properly analyse data and develop further during what turned into an extremely compressed championship thanks to COVID-19.
Data and development is an area where the team has been able to make more progress this year by leveraging team principal Massimo Rivola’s Formula 1 experience to replicate how that championship operates with remote staff. There’s been an expansion in the number of engineers working every race weekend back at Aprilia’s base in Noale to crunch the numbers.
Aprilia has also been aided by MotoGP’s development freeze, increased during the pandemic as a cost-saving measure and forcing manufacturers to use their 2020-spec engines in 2021 as well. But it’s a move that Aprilia, as MotoGP’s last remaining concession-status team, is exempt from.
Yet despite the progress it’s made, the engine still an area where the team is lacking, with Espargaro admitting after last Sunday’s race at the Red Bull Ring – one of the fastest tracks of the MotoGP season – that Aprilia needs to find more power to be more competitive.
“The first laps were very frustrating, because when everyone has a lot of pure grip and they can accelerate from the beginning of the corner, there’s nothing I can do,” he explained.
“Especially when we change to third, fourth, fifth, sixth gear – we have not enough torque and I suffer a lot.
“The beginning of the race is very difficult for me. The bike is maybe 90% perfect everywhere; on the brakes, on the acceleration, on the electronics, on wheelie, on the stability.
“We’re just missing power, and there’s nothing I can do.”
While there’s nothing that Espargaro can do about the lack of horsepower except begging his engineers to continue working on the problem, it seems like his prayers might be answered sooner rather than later with a big technical step forward planned for the team in the coming rounds.
It’s believed by The Race’s sources in the paddock that Aprilia will bring a new specification of engine to next month’s Aragon Grand Prix, with the new powerplant rumoured to be a considerable step forward in terms of speed for them.
It couldn’t come at a better time, either, thanks both to the layout of the Motorland Aragon circuit and Espargaro’s previous form at the track.
A fast configuration with a long back straight leading into the final two turns, it’s somewhere where top end power plays a key role – and if the upgrade is, as he says, the final missing step, then it would be immediately apparent if Aprilia has been successful or not.
Espargaro, who hails from only a few hours away in Barcelona, has also got an excellent track record at Aragon. A consistent top-six finisher at the track for Aprilia even when it was struggling to break into the top 10 elsewhere, he’ll be hoping that improved pace throughout 2021 will mean that he can finally close in on the podium fight there.
There’s another reason why the engine upgrade might have come at a key time too, though, as 2022 signing Maverick Vinales is rumoured to be preparing to make his Aprilia debut directly after next weekend’s British Grand Prix.
The Spaniard, now a free agent after splitting with Yamaha last week, will ride on August 31 and September 1 at Misano, as he prepares for a return to MotoGP action in place of Espargaro’s current team-mate Lorenzo Savadori before the year is out.
