Battle of the wings
“Politically I can only say that I got angry as a beast and that I made myself heard“. During the winter break, Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola had not hidden his disappointment at the attempt by some manufacturers to ban aerodynamic appendages in the areas behind the riders’ seating position.
Read more Hamilton completes the Pirelli tests with wet tires: 884 km in 2 days at Fiorano
As often happens in these cases, the manufacturers that tried to frustrate the technical pioneering of Aprilia and Honda had emphasized that these appendages could be dangerous, trying to leverage the issue of safety, but in the end, the attempt to ban them was unsuccessful, as evidenced by the proliferation of aerodynamic appendages on all the bikes at the start in MotoGP.
In Texas, the rear wing also arrived on the official Ducatis of Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia, but not yet on the Desmosedici entrusted to Fabio Di Giannantonio, who was the best Ducati rider at the finish line, also benefiting from the long lap penalty that Marc Marquez had to serve. “It is obvious that you always have to look at who is in the lead, and it seems that Aprilia is achieving excellent results at the moment, so why not take inspiration” the words of team manager Davide Tardozzi to motogp.com. Francesco Bagnaia’s first impressions thanks to this novelty are of greater stability in fast corners.
Read more De Telegraaf: “Ferrari will keep an eye on Verstappen’s situation”
Aprilia has not hidden that it considers itself the aerodynamic benchmark of the starting grid, and in Austin Marco Bezzecchi won even though he lost some wings following contact on the first lap with Pedro Acosta: “Bezzecchi suffered from the lost pieces especially during hard braking and on that track there are several – Rivola explained – the rear part of the bike was definitely lighter, more unstable and therefore more difficult to control. He did a great job adapting, if others think that aerodynamics don’t matter, let them continue to think so“.
Read more Giving more power to the internal combustion engine: why it is not immediately feasible
