Albesiano cries freedom in MotoGP

The man in charge of Aprilia’s big move from full WSB factory status to full MotoGP status in 2015, Romano Albesiano was encouraged by the first real test of the new pneumatic valve Aprilia engine and GP chassis package, while acknowledging things were not perfect first time out. “We will take away a lot of information from this test,” said the man who took the WSB title back again for Aprilia in his first season in charge. “It was the first extensive test with the new engine, the pneumatic valve engine, and it worked quite well. We had a small problem with Marco’s but not inside the engine itself, in the intake trumpet system. The engine character is OK so I think that we are at a good average situation. Good for a start. We have a lot of things to do in terms of engine mapping development, some chassis development to do so many things because we had to recover a gap.”

There will be two immediate areas of development work for Aprilia back in their workshops. “Engine mapping is the priority then some chassis checks in terms of geometry. There are many other things to test. For example. Wheel rim sizes, so many things.”

With Aprilia moving its main team up to MotoGP from the WSB championship it has won three riders’ titles in recently, and with more restrictive technical rules for 2015, Albesiano is happy that Aprilia Racing is shifting its main engineering focus into a championship with no roadbike limitations. “MotoGP is more exciting for us,” said Albesiano. “OK, Superbike is a very, very nice category but it is more limited in the changes you can make. Here in MotoGP it is more difficult but it is also more exciting, for engineers. For spectators sometimes Superbike is much more exciting. But MotoGP is where you can really play – that is the right word!”