Technical Manager Press Conference: Yamaha, Suzuki & Aprilia

The first of two Press Conferences sees three of the six MotoGP™ manufacturers take stock of 2021 so far

Friday, 06 August 2021

On Friday at the Michelin® Grand Prix of Styria, the Red Bull Ring hosted the first of two Technical Manager Press Conferences to take stock of the first half of 2021 for each MotoGP™ manufacturer.

Takahiro Sumi; Yamaha YZR-M1 Project Leader, Ken Kawauchi; Team Suzuki Ecstar Technical Manager, and Romano Albesiano; Aprilia Racing Technical Director, were up first to give an overview of their impressions and take questions from the media.

Here are some key quotes:

Takahiro Sumi, Yamaha YZR-M1 Project Leader: “We are happy, of course. We’ve finished half of the season in the top position, but more than that, we are happy that we confirmed the direction and action in the last two years to this season is correct. So we’ve concentrated our development as planned without any confusion, this is the biggest good thing.

“We’ve improved all aspects from last year; engine, chassis, aerodynamics, but the main point we improved from last year is chassis, especially Fabio feels more feeling on the bike, so he can push at his limit more. So this is a key to his performance.”

Ken Kawauchi, Team Suzuki ECSTAR Technical Manager: “2020 was a very good year and our bike grew from 2020 to 2021, we improved, sure, but our way of developing is not big steps but sure steps. We improved from last year to this year but it seems other manufacturers could make some big steps. So struggling a bit in the first half of the season but I don’t think our results so far reflect our performance so I’m looking forward to fighting in the second half of the season.

“We already finished testing the lowering device in Japan and then we’ve shipped it here, so if we have the opportunity we’ll try it, but during the last weekend it was difficult to try. But we’re ready to, and as part of development in the second half of the season we’re preparing some aerodynamics and every part of the bike, not big steps but some sure improvements.”

Romano Albesiano, Aprilia Racing Technical Director: “I’m quite proud, we’ve finally reached a good level of performance at almost all circuits. We’ve focused on some weak points we had in the past and we’ve fixed them, 90% fixed these points, and now we have a good base for stable development for the future.

“I believe it’s fundamental (to have made that step) for the future. In the last two seasons we made major changes to the engine, for example, for layout reasons… not directly related to performance, power output, but we had to do it. But every time you make a big change, you make a step forward… but sometimes you make two steps backwards. In the end we managed to keep more or less the same level in terms of engine performance, maybe we lost something but what we lost made the rider action even easier. So this is maybe one reason for our improvement, and finally in front of us we have two or three seasons without major changes on the bike and we know that the performance of a racing bike comes from refinement, not revolution. So I’m quite optimistic for the future.”

Ducati, KTM and Honda will join the second Technical Manager Press Conference at the Bitci Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich.