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Aprilia MotoGP engine still at only ’60 per cent’ of potential

Aprila’s MotoGP powerplant is still only at 60 per cent of its potential but riders Alvaro Bautisa and Stefan Bradl will get an upgrade at the team’s home Mugello round in two weeks’ time.

The team, who delayed their development work by changing to a reverse crankhaft layout last summer, have begun to introduce updates in 2016, starting with wings at Jerez but boss Romano Albesiano says it is only the chassis that is close to 100 per cent right.

“At Jerez we brought the new wings and on Monday after the race we worked mainly to fine tune the engine controls and we tested different set ups. In addition to the Michelin tyres, we tested also a new chassis. We are still exploring the different stiffness, so this test was important to understand the direction to follow. We have also put in place the test team with Mike Di Meglio that will continue the development while we are racing. We have already been to Mugello and there is an intense test program in place,” Albesiano told BSN.

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“The chassis is good and I can say that we are at our 95%, while we are at our 60% as far as the engine is concerned. There is an important room for improvement also for the electronics controls where we are at our 75%. The current engine equals the power we had last year so it’s not enough. The first important step is planned for the Mugello GP, our home Grand Prix.

"On Monday at Mugello we completed a few important electronics tests with Bautista and Bradl in terms of power output, whereas on Tuesday and Wednesday the tests continued with Di Meglio and the Aprilia test team. At Le Mans there will once again be aerodynamic changes, engine performance improvements and some further fine-tuning on the electronics package that we will be trying out on the French track. We are coming from a race at Jerez where the RS-GP showed some important signs of competitiveness and we aim to continue the positive trend.

“We had started to project an engine with the traditional crankshaft that has some advantages, but last summer we decided to go for a reverse crankshaft so we had to start again and this caused some delays. Of course the reverse crankshaft has several disadvantages as it is heavier, more complicated and with more friction, but on the other side the bike gains a lot in terms of handling.”

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