You’ve got to love Italians, they are never happy even if they win and when you’ve got two Italian manufacturers facing off against each other and bickering becomes the name of the game.

The first round of the World Superbike championship at Phillip Island saw Aprilia and Ducati divide a win a piece, with Max Biaggi dominating the first race and Carlos Checa doing the same in the second, but both riders weren’t really pitted against each other as Checa DNFd in race 1 and Biaggi had to furiously fight back after being relegated to the last spot after a runnning off track.

So you’d think that their team managers would be more than satisfied, but you’d be wrong. Gigi Dall’Igna and Biaggi have taken to task criticizing the rules that allow the twin cylinder bikes to race against the four cylinder bikes, and have branded the the current six kilo handicap a joke and that Checa will be still favoured to win the title.

The pitlane reporter of the LA7 channel went to interview Genesio Bevilacqua of Althea Racing to talk about his rider’s victory, instead the Italian manager indirectly talked about Biaggi’s remarkable second place.

We already know the Italian manager’s position on the extra weight, he hates it, says it’s a disadvantage and constantly harks on it and today wasn’t any different, “I was disappointed to see that there are riders that can start from last position and finish second, while we are penalized with six extra kilos of weight. It will be hard to overcome this difficulty this season, even with a rider, a champion, of Carlos’ caliber”. Naturally Bevilacqua is another member of that club that says that the Aprilia RSV4 is really a MotoGP bike masquerading as a Superbike.

We’ve just started the season and it looks like it is going to be very long, but not the way we want it to be.

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When yesterday’s rumor broke that Aprilia had run a slightly different fuel injection pump on Max Biaggi’s RSV4 at Assen, and that the Italian manufacturer had been warned to replace it with the original homologated one mounted on their street bikes before the Monza round next month, certain fans started to get their panties in a twist, as if someone would actually dare accuse Aprilia and a World Champion of bending the rules.

So the biggest Italian website on racing news GPone.com decided to contact Aprilia’s team manager Gigi Dall’Igna to find out the truth behind the rumor and get the real lowdown from the man himself.

The manager naturally denied the rumors or any wrongdoings, pointing out that the fuel injection pump on Biaggi’s RSV4 was/is in conformity with the rules and the only difference from the one on Camier’s and Haga’s bikes was a date stamp placed on it during the production phase and that’s different for all the pumps.

End of this little rumor, but we’re sure that something equally jucier will come up by the end of the season, it always does.

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The rumors that Aprilia may have decided to enter MotoGP in 2012 with the new 1000cc rules and with Jorge ‘Aspar’ Martinez running the new team are getting stronger as the season goes by.

According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, Aprilia wants to enter MotoGP first with Martinez, who’s contract with Ducati is up at the end of 2011 and then officially enter the premier class with their own full fledged factory team in 2013.

The Italian sports daily is also reporting that deal between Aprilia’s technical director Gigi dall’Igna and the powerful Spanish manager who runs three teams in Grand Prix series, went through a couple of weeks ago and was overseen by Dorna’s Carmelo Ezpeleta.

The Piaggio Group is the fourth largest motorcycle manufacturer after Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki, and Aprilia with Max Biaggi are on their way to their first WSBK championship just two years after the RSV4 Factory debut and the company can’t afford waiting any longer to appear in MotoGP in some form or other.

Source | gazzetta.it

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If you happened to watch the rerun of World Superbike races at Silverstone through the La7’s link that we gave you the other day, you’ll probably notice pitlane commentator Fabrizio Calia interviewing Aprilia’s technical director Gigi Dall’Igna twice during the running of Race 1. The second interview took place during the 12th lap was when Leon Camier was riding in front of team-mate Max Biaggi and the Aprilia director was asked if there are would be any team orders for Camier.

Dall’Igna’s answer was more or less: “Absolutely not, there are no team orders” so while Italian fans were nodding their heads admiring the Alitalia Aprilia team ethics, we’ve have another side to the story according to bikesportnews.com. The British website reported that the young Camier was instead shown a pitboard which read ’switch’, and that he suddenly slowed down loosing three-quarters of a second and Biaggi was back in front of him taking the fourth spot under the chequered flag.

“Max is trying to win the title and I didn’t want to hinder him. It’s in the whole team’s best interests that Max becomes champion this year so I did what I thought was best for us all.” said Camier.

Camier is a good team player and there’s still the fact that the Brit rider is still negotiating a new contract with the Italian team and Aprilia did give free reign to Camier in race 2, but did Biaggi really need that extra point considering big advantage he has in the standings?

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Every since Dorna and FIM announced the new 2012 rule change in MotoGP (that could actually be implemented in 2011) rumors that Aprilia could be returning to the premier class have been frequent, despite Gigi Dall’Igna and Leo Mercanti having always denied the rumor.

However the latest new coming out of Spain, have one of the most powerful managers of the GP paddock, Jorge Martinez (Team Aspar) and the Italian manufacturer working on an ambitious project that could see Aprilia debut next season in MotoGP with a 1000cc bike with a modified RSV4 engine.

Starting with Martinez would be an excellent move, because the Spaniard has one of the largest and the best organized structures in the Grand Prix circus. with teams in all three categories, and has had a long relationship with Aprilia’s Gigi Dall’Igna, despite last year’s falling out when Aprilia suddenly backed out of the Moto2, leaving Aspar without a chassis and scrambling to find a last minute supplier for Julian Simon and Mike di Meglio.

With the MotoGP grid down to sixteen riders after Valentino Rossi’s injury, and in a worse case scenario the risk that some other rider crashing and hurting himself, the sooner that privateer teams using modified production engines and prototype chassis can enter the series the bigger grid we’ll see and hopefully some interesting racing.

Source | motocuatro.com

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After getting the okay from the Superbike Commission to use their gear driven camshaft, Aprilia is now making the kit available for all RSV4 Factory owners, but costs for the kit have yet to be released.

Here’s what Aprilia’s Technical and Racing Director Gigi dall’Igna had to say:

We were certain our position was right, and we were in fact the first to announce the technical developments we were working on during the team presentation press conference. We are the newcomers in this great championship and, while adhering to the regulations, we are obliged to explore every technical possibility to help us close the gap between us and our rivals, who have years of experience and success behind them.”

“We have worked intensively on the gear driven camshaft system and its development is still a work in progress, with the main focus on improving power delivery. We could be ready to race in a couple of months, possibly for the US race at the Miller Motorsport Park.”

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