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In 2022, Aleix Espargaró secured Aprilia's first MotoGP victory in Silverstone, fighting against Pecco Bagnaia for the world championship title in the premier class, up until the overseas races in the fall. And, for a while, it looked as if the Noale factory would snatch the first MotoGP title of its career from former the Piaggio Group's Racing Director Gigi Dall'Igna.
The bearded Ducati Corse General Manager was hired by Ducati in October 2013, also because he saw no prospect of ever winning the premier class with Aprilia. Dall'Igna had collected world titles in the 125 cc and 250 cc classes and in the Superbike World Championship with the Aprilia, Derbi, and Gilera brands at Piaggio. However, the manufacturer from Veneto avoided the MotoGP category after the Beggio era, and the first three MotoGP years from 2002 to 2004, and also the subsequent bankruptcy. So he concentrated on the Superbike World Championship, where he celebrated title wins with Max Biaggi in 2010 and 2012 and with Sylvain Guintoli in 2014.
But no sooner had Gigi Dall'Igna transferred to his fierce rival in Borgo Panigale, Piaggio owner Roberto Colaninno announced the budget for Aprilia's return to MotoGP. He wanted to show Ducati and Dall'Igna who the technological leader in Italy's motorcycle business was.
Well, there were quite respectable victories at Aprilia, especially after the arrival of Massimo Rivola, who was presented as the new CEO of Aprilia Racing in January 2019. The RS-GP became increasingly more competitive and reliable. In addition, after 2021 and seven years, the joint venture with team owner Fausto Gresini was terminated, and the Dorna factory team was rewarded with two MotoGP places of its own.
Incidentally, Dorna did not entrust Aprilia with two of its own spots when the MotoGP returned in 2015 because, after three years, Ivano Beggio had left after 2004, despite a five-year contract, and Aprilia had never paid the contractual penalty that was due.
In the meantime, Aprilia established itself among the top three in the Constructors World Championship and made itself even more popular with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta before 2023, because it equipped a customer team (RNF by Razlan Razali) for the first time, which was then taken over by the US racing team, Trackhouse Racing, in November 2023.
The rivalry between Aprilia and Ducati was already evident before the first four-stroke MotoGP season in 2002, when Aprilia CEO Ivano Beggio pulled out all the stops, in order to enter the new 990 cc class a year before Ducati.
The engine for the three-cylinder Cube was commissioned by Racing Director Jan Witteveen from the company's first subsidiary, Cosworth, in England, because - besides their activities in the 125 cc, 250 cc, and SBK World Championships - the capacities of Aprilia Reparto Corse in Noale were not sufficient to develop such a high-tech engine that could compete with the likes of Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. The Cube was ahead of its time in some technical respects.
In an interview with GPOne.com, former Aprilia Racing Director Jan Witteveen describes the advantages of the Cube project and the difficult ins and outs.
Ride by Wire, pneumatic valve drive, counter-rotating crankshaft: these are now all technical matters in the MotoGP World Championship. But, in 2002, only one manufacturer took advantage of this know-how: Aprilia. The Italian company dominated the 125cc and 250cc World Championships for years. At the time, Jan Witteveen dictated the rules as racing director and technical director of Aprilia Reparto Corse in Noale. He was significantly involved in the first and unique MotoGP project for 2002. In the same year, Aprilia was the only factory to use an in-line 990 cc three-cylinder engine. Its rival, Ducati, only entered the premier class in 2003.
Due to time constraints, a partner from the automotive industry, Cosworth, was brought on board for the MotoGP engine. "This saved us time, because Cosworth was able to offer us the cylinder units and pistons of the three-litre Formula 1 V8 engines. This meant we could use the same bore and a similar stroke and had enough power right from the start," Jan Witteveen recalled. He left Aprilia after 2004, when head of the Piaggio Group, Roberto Colaninno, took over.
"We did the layout of the engine in Aprilia, as well as all the mechanical parts," Witteveen said. "Only the performance parts were supplied by Cosworth. The three-cylinder idea came from us, because we wanted to use the performance parts with Formula 1 technology as a basis."
Aprilia initially contacted Sauber Petronas Engineering (SPE) in Switzerland, where former Honda Formula 1 engineer, Osamu Goto, was at the helm. "But Sauber lacked the know-how. We didn't want to take that risk."
"Furthermore, the Swiss were too expensive", Witteveen remembered. "At the same time, we had already had a partnership with Cosworth for our two-cylinder superbike. Cylinder head, pistons, we got everything from Cosworth for the SBK. When we saw that our MotoGP plan with Sauber looked difficult, we also agreed upon the deal for the MotoGP engines with Cosworth."
"We decided on the three-cylinder engine for 2002, because this motorcycle could then be 10 kg lighter than the bikes with four and five cylinders. At the time, Honda proposed that MSMA should standardize the weight for four and five cylinders," Witteveen explained. "At the beginning of the regulations, a five-cylinder had to weigh 10 kg more than a four-cylinder. Like all the other factories, we agreed to the HRC proposal because none of us could imagine that a factory would build a five-cylinder, since it seemed like a strange concept to us. Despite this, Honda surprisingly developed the V5 motor for the RCV211 bike, and then had no weight disadvantage compared to the four-cylinder engines. We, on the other hand, planned the three-cylinder Cube to be 10 kg lighter than that of our opponents, so we had a weight advantage. But because of all the Formula 1 technology, the rideability and power development of the Cube engine suffered, since its power band was too narrow."
Despite this, the Aprilia Cube was rolled out in the MotoGP World Championship from 2002 to 2004. In 2002, it was only with Régis Laconi, who collected 33 points and finished 19th in the World Championship. Colin Edwards and Noriyuki Haga rode the Cube to a 13th and 14th place in the World Championship in 2003, collecting 62 and 47 points, respectively. In 2004, Jeremy McWilliams finished 19th in the World Championship on the Aprilia. Aprilia did not trust Cosworth for the electronics and, instead, used an in-house ECU called "Poker".
"From a technical point of view, we made the right decision," Witteveen is still convinced today. "But we had to develop everything from scratch, since no performance parts for 990 cc three-cylinder racing engines existed."
In addition, Cosworth halted the partnership's further development of the Cube engine. Witteveen: "Cosworth definitely wanted to keep Aprilia as a client in the long term. But I only wanted to use Cosworth as a start-up and then take over the project entirely myself. The English, therefore, always put the brakes on so that they could remain with our project as long as possible. But I didn't want to give them too many technical details, because I was afraid that they'd sell this knowledge to a competitor in the foreseeable future."
At the time, Aprilia did not have a "cleaning room" at Reparto Corse. This is a system that requires the highest level of cleanliness. There must not be a single grain of sand or dust particle in the air. Everything has to be filtered clinically clean, because engines with pneumatic valves are particularly delicate in this respect. The system only works when it is clinically clean. It was not until 2004 that Aprilia built its own cleaning room in Noale.
"Aprilia was integrated into the Piaggio Group in 2005, as were Moto Guzzi, Gilera, and Derbi. Since then, Aprilia has no longer existed as a separate manufacturer. It was a kind of merger. Moto Guzzi, on the other hand, has always remained an independent factory under Piaggio. All Aprilia headquarters are now under the Piaggio umbrella in Noale and Scorzé," Witteveen said.
"In 2004, we did most of the work ourselves and developed most of the work for McWilliams and Byrne in MotoGP, without Cosworth," Jan Witteveen remembered. "Cosworth was just a supplier. But Piaggio took over Aprilia as the new owner on January 1s, 2005 and ended the MotoGP project."
After withdrawing from the MotoGP at the end of 2004, Aprilia did not return to the premier class until 2015. But the beginnings were problematic because a souped-up superbike was used in the first year and, according to experts, the first 1000 cc MotoGP V4 prototype of the RS-GP of 2016 for Álvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl looked confusingly similar to the Honda RC213.
