On Thursday of the Malaysian Grand Prix, Maverick Viñales regretted not being able to continue using the latest starting system introduced by Aprilia. “It’s hurting us. But I can’t say anything else,” the Spaniard said. When his teammate Aleix Espargaro was asked the question about it, he got angry: “Maverick said this? We can’t talk about this”, he replied to the question posed by the writer. When Motorsport.com tried to make sense of the mystery, the response from every Aprilia rumor mill consulted was the same: “We’re not allowed to talk about it.”
However, Motorsport.com can confirm that a complaint from a competing manufacturer has forced Aprilia to no longer use the latest clutch specification on the RS-GP, which was intended to speed up the start, one of the areas where Espargaró and Viñales felt they were at a big disadvantage compared to their rivals, starting from the Australian Grand Prix.
Several sources consulted suspect that the complaint comes from KTM, which believes that this version of the clutch in question violates the technical regulation, as its operation depends too much on the electronic control unit. Indeed, this is an area of the regulation that is currently under review, as it has some gray areas. Initially, the championship’s technical managers had given the green light to the component, considering that it did not work completely automatically, but required the driver’s action.
“You just need to see the video of how the Aprilia comes out to understand that it is an automatic clutch, like the one used in Formula 1,” a track engineer in the Sepang paddock explained to Motorsport.
The surprising thing is that since the beginning of the season KTM has developed a new starting system for its RC16s which has allowed them to make a huge step forward, to the point that at Mugello Jack Miller had the chance to move from fifth position to grid to first in the middle straight. He also showed the “V” for victory to poleman Pecco Bagnaia by removing his left hand from the handlebars of his motorbike.
The system introduced by KTM in June allowed them to be the best bike on the grid in terms of starting. “It’s incredible that Binder starts from the fourth row and is leading the race at the first corner, this is a fact that needs to be analysed,” a veteran technician from Noale told Motorsport.
Following complaints from its riders about starting problems on the grid, Aprilia designed a clutch that, theoretically, is not automatic but works as if it were, which led to the aforementioned complaint and its withdrawal.
KTM, in addition to the complaint for the Aprilia clutch, asked the technical commission for a change to the current regulation to have its clutch homologated, which works very similarly to the Aprilia one. For the moment, the Austrian manufacturer has voluntarily withdrawn the system from its bikes during the last race in Thailand, awaiting a possible change in the regulations that would allow it to be used again.
With Aprilia and KTM unable to use their new clutches, Ducati, which is the manufacturer that started working with carbon and electronic assistance in its clutch system three years ago, now has the best and most fast on the MotoGP grid.
#MotoGP #Complaint #rival #Aprilia #withdraws #starting #system