Albesiano speaks Aprilia’s 2015 language

With two major racing projects to look after – a completely new one in MotoGP and a whole new set of regulations in WSB – Aprilia and its racing chief Romano Albesiano have had a busy few months recently.

The Red Devils Aprilia team, with full factory technical back-up from the Noale factory, arrived at the Portimao tests ready to go hard from the start but found the weather against them at times, allowing Albesiano to speak of the 2015 changes before the action started in earnest.

“This is the final version of the bike,” he confirmed. “In the previous Jerez sessions we tested a transition bike, the 2014 bike with the engine map to give the same power as this one. So this is the proper bike that will be shipped to Australia, based on the new homologated machine. That helps for sure.”

Albesiano also gave an indication of how much less power the Aprilia would be producing compared to 2014’s more freely tuned version. “About 15 horses,” he said, and then confirmed that it should, in theory, be more user-friendly because of the reduced top power. “We should discover how much more user friendly the bike is later today if the weather allows,” he said.

“Looking at the power diagrams it looks like it should be easier, we expect this, but it is never easier. You cannot avoid the use of electronics. These bikes are electronic dependent – how you say in English? – electronics addicted.”

As Aprilia makes its own electronics, they were less dependent on others for supply of equipment and this has meant few changes despite the new cost-capping limits. “The new regulation changed our electronics situation very slightly,” said Albesiano.

“We were just changing some sensors, as sensors are limited, but the functionality of the system is not changed. We do not have a new ECU box, because the previous situation was already very close to what is requested now.”