WSBK » Aprilia presents the RSV4

It''s a handsome looking beast. Makes the 1098 look a bit sick (mind you, I still prefer the 999 over the 1098 so what do I know!!)

Nice to see Biaggi ending his career with the company he began his world championship campaign back in 250 GP. I hope he can keep his head together and give the bike a good run over the next couple of years (develop next year and go for the championship in 2010)

Excellent!

All the best for 2009 Max and for the rest of the season. Hope you aren''t feeling too sore after Corser knocked you off!

Go BIAGGI!

Let's hope it goes as good as it looks!

I just hope with all the time and effort they've spent on developing the bike, they've remembered its supposed to have a back brake that works!

Lets hope we see Biaggi putting the frighteners on Ducati

I might be totally wide of the mark here in engineering terms, but isn't this bike going to wipe the floor with everything else currently in the championship? Won't a V4 produce more power than an inline 4 and a v twin, so isn't this going to have a massive advantage? I appreciate that they wont have track/tyre data, but even so….early reports was that in stock trim it was going to have nearly 200bhp….

Suppose fans are never happy – we want more teams, different bikes – but obviously all the while close racing…..

Speaking of which motogp single tyre – DUNLOP…!!

Delboy - a V4 does'nt make more power than an inline 4 , the Ducati desmosedici does but that is due to the desmo valves allowing high revs rather than the configuration.
The Suzuki GP bike is a V4 and that is probably the slowest or very nearly the slowest in GP's.

Aprilia talk the talk but can they walk the walk?
We saw the same type of hype with the cube in MotoGP - what a disaster that was.
No real success in WSB with the twin.
The comment about Europe's most successful race manufacturer is a bit of a joke - yes, in smaller class 2-strokes where none of the big boys want to play, but compared to what Ducati has achieved over the years, in superbike, supersport, and MotoGP, they are nowhere.
Always good to have a few more manufacturers making up the field though.

Thanks Tim Bo - but the Suzuki motogp bike would beat Haga's R1 or Bayliss' 1098? Though I appreciate very different rules and regulations. And here's a question, would a Desmo run well in WSBK?

Also its more than just outright power, the Ducati developers slightly less power but its the way it gets it down, and I presuming (perhaps wrongly) that a V4 will be better than a Vtwin?

All these features (variable geometry frame, engine position, multiple engine maps, cassette gearbox, etc) are great ideas, but they''ll need to figure it all out. So many variables, I''m not sure they can do that right away. Time will tell, but it seems super complicated to me.

Zack you say the comment about aprilia being europe's most successful race manufacturer is bit of a joke. Yes in gp's they have the majority of their wins (304) but the company did start out as a scooter/ small bike manufacturer. Up till now the RSV100R was their only superbike and I seem to remember it did quite well with Troy Corser sitting on it. Remember they are still only a small company compared to Ducati