Aprilia is determined to establish itself as a force in MotoGP, and after the progress made in recent years, in 2024 it once again presents a bike with interesting solutions – particularly the elaborate aerodynamics at the rear. Massimo Rivola, CEO of Aprilia Racing, addressed the issue.
It’s a path that is constantly sought after by the manufacturer from Noale, as stated by the Italian: ‘To be honest, I think that every year – especially from the aerodynamics point of view – we brought a lot of innovation. I think innovation is part of Aprilia’s «DNA» and we are quite keen to keep inovating. If all those innovations will work or not is a different story, because sometimes you have the numbers, you have the CFD, you have the wind tunnel that tells you something, but when you go on track maybe the feeling of the rider is a different story’.
Having said that, Rivola mentioned that there were no major showcase innovations on the RS-GP for 2024: ‘I think there’s not special this year. For sure the aerodynamic is an area that we believe will bring performance on our bike. That was clear from 2019 to 2020, from 2020 to 2021 – I mean, every year we did a step. And again, I think this year it’s another step. But when you change from that point of view you give the rider a bike that is behaving in a different way, so you need a bit of time to adapt to that’.