Boss of Aprilia Racing confirms he will be involved in future road bike development

The man who took the Aprilia RSV4 Superbike to the World Superbike title has exclusively confirmed to MCN that he will be involved in ‘future innovation’ in the firm’s road bikes.

Rumours began earlier today that Aprilia’s Gigi Dall’Igna will be taking over the role of road bike development alongside his responsibilities as technical Director of Aprilia Racing.

Dall’Igna spoke to MCN exclusively and said: “I will be staying on in my role as Technical Director for Aprilia Racing but there are moves to make me more involved in the innovation and development of street bikes too.”

The reshuffle comes about following the success of winning the WSB title by Max Biaggi in only the firm’s second year of competing with the all-new 999cc V4 superbike.

This isn’t the first time a manufacturer has taken racing engineers and involved them in road bike development.

Honda has a history of using HRC engineers in road bike design and Ducati has most recently had great success as a result of the engineering and leadership of Claudio Domenicali who not only runs the Ducati Corse racing department but has been integral in the design of bikes such as the 1098, latest Monster range and the Multistrada 1200.

It’s not clear where this leaves current head of Aprilia road bikes Leo Mercanti but we are told a press release will be issued tomorrow morning.

We will update this story as it develops.