Espargaro and Aprilia’s Quest for Balance: Trading Corner Speed for Braking in 2024 MotoGP Season

Aleix Espargaro Targets Enhancing Aprilia's 2023 Cornering Speed with 2024 Braking Improvements

Aleix Espargaro: 'It's all about striking the right equilibrium. That's the essence of the strategy.'

MotoGP teams regularly encounter a challenging dilemma: shifting from sporadic victories to consistent season-long competitiveness usually requires sacrificing an area of advantage to improve upon a more significant shortfall.

At Aprilia, the situation appears to involve significant advancements in heavy braking capabilities with the latest RS-GP model, albeit at the expense of a bit of corner speed for the 2023 season.

"Examining the entire season, the equilibrium has improved," Aleix Espargaro noted. "The motorcycle's stopping capability has enhanced, which was the primary issue last year."

"However, reflecting on the previous year, we were leading the pack. Approaching the final bend at Mugello, I was in a league of my own, a feeling that no longer persists."

"However, this comes with the territory. It's about striking the right equilibrium throughout the season. This applies not just in Mugello, but across more than 20 races."

"On the quicker tracks such as those in Barcelona and Silverstone, the motorcycle remains competitive, though not to the extent it was the previous year."

"He elaborated that the 2024 model of the bike has a significantly increased weight. This, coupled with an altered downforce, substantially influences the motorcycle's performance and also changes the way riders position themselves, leading to a different manner of handling the bike."

Espargaro and Aprilia are considering adopting two distinct foundational setups tailored to accommodate tracks that are either quick and fluid or characterized by abrupt starts and stops.

"For the first time, we have the opportunity to consider two different setups: One tailored for tracks with frequent starts and stops, and another aimed at minimizing our losses on high-speed circuits such as Barcelona and Assen," he explained.

In Barcelona, around turns 13 and 14, I felt quite frustrated because I couldn't keep up with the pace of the '23, and Raul [Fernandez] outperformed me in those sections.

"Yet, I managed to achieve greater speed in the first corner, compared to my performance in '23. Significantly faster, in fact. This was also true for corner 10, where there's intense braking at the conclusion of the back straight."

"We are grasping the equilibrium needed for what lies ahead, given that much of the season remains before us."

Although experiencing some performance dips in certain areas might be annoying, Aprilia finds itself in a more advantageous position now compared to the same period last year, despite the comparison being based on a slightly varied set of seven circuits.

Maverick Vinales, Espargaro's colleague, presently holds the sixth position as the leading Aprilia competitor in the global championship standings, with Espargaro himself in the eighth spot. However, at this point in the previous season, they were positioned ninth (Espargaro) and tenth (Vinales) in the rankings.

The initial progress is evident in the teams' rankings, which have risen from 108 points in 2023 to 182 points in 2024, alongside the constructors' championship points, which increased from 99 in 2023 to 138 in 2024.

Similarly, KTM, which had a 36-point advantage over Aprilia in the constructors' standings after the first seven races of last season, now leads by a mere two points in the battle to be the top team behind Ducati.

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