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Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
We aim to finish No. 2 in 2025 MotoGP constructors' standings: Technical Director, Aprilia Racing
Having completed stints with Ducati and KTM in MotoGP, Fabiano Sterlacchini joined Aprilia Racing as its new Technical Director at the start of this season. The veteran has been instrumental in shaping the successes of his previous teams, and joins Aprilia as the factory-backed team looks at a more competitive year. With the championship well over the halfway mark, we caught up with Fabiano Sterlacchini to know about how the team is progressing since his arrival, and where we see the team finishing in this season's MotoGP constructors' standings. HT Auto: How's the experience been for you at Aprilia Racing so far, and what's different compared to Ducati and KTM? Fabiano: Compared to Ducati, Aprilia is quite similar. Maybe it's a matter of location and culture, and the people, and the scholastic background of the people. I would say that Aprilia is really similar to Ducati as a company. KTM was different in terms of the geographic point of view. This might seem like a silly statement, but their approach, being a company that was coming from the off-road, is quite different compared to road racing. Because clearly with road racing, you have is quite something in some ways simple for us, but probably not so obvious for all the other people. With road racing, you have the same track that is basically the same for 20 laps or 100 laps during the day, or 20 laps during the race. With the off-road, for example, every lap is a different track. Because you are modifying and destroying the track. So their approach, in terms of a statistical approach, is completely different. So I would say that basically it is an obsession to find some trend from a statistical point of view that we have in Aprilia, they had in Ducati. But in KTM it was different, it was more approach of trying and making some experiments, and seeing if the riders like it or not. I believe that in this moment, for the level of competition, we need to be more engineeriistic. Also check these Bikes Find more Bikes Aprilia RS 457 457 cc 457 cc 30 kmpl 30 kmpl ₹ 4.23 Lakhs Compare View Offers Aprilia Tuono 457 457 cc 457 cc 25.5 kmpl 25.5 kmpl ₹ 3.95 Lakhs Compare View Offers Yamaha R3 321 cc 321 cc 25 kmpl 25 kmpl ₹ 3.60 Lakhs Compare View Offers UPCOMING Honda CB500F 471.0 cc 471.0 cc 28.6 kmpl 28.6 kmpl ₹ 4.79 Lakhs Alert Me When Launched Kawasaki Ninja 300 296 cc 296 cc 30 kmpl 30 kmpl ₹ 3.43 Lakhs Compare View Offers CFMoto 650NK 649.3 cc 649.3 cc 20 kmpl 20 kmpl ₹ 4.29 Lakhs Compare View Offers Also Read : Aprilia files trademark for RSV1000 nameplate. Will it come to India? HT Auto: What changes have the bikes undergone since your arrival? What was the fundamental change from last year's bike to this year's bike? Fabiano: So it's not the main thing that we change. We try to work strongly on one of the most critical points of the bike. Because we have nobody to guide the level of performance. One is the technical performance of the bike, and the other is how much the rider, without understanding, is actually on the bike. Because the bike is sometimes unpredictable. How much margin are they keeping from the real technical performance of the bike? First of all, we try to make the bike much easier to ride for the riders, especially because these margins sometimes are quite high. So the stability at the exit and the stability in the entry are the aspects where we work the most, and we work on the side characteristics of the engine, in terms of the dynamics, for what we can change in the bike. Because the engine is sealed in terms of electronics, and what we work on the vehicle. We also changed the ergonomics. So we try to work on a lot of aspects. Nothing is completely out of what the project was at the beginning, before I arrived, but we clearly modified a lot of small things. HT Auto: Now that you're working with Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi, how's that experience been? What's your take on each of these riders and how they've progressed so far in the season? Fabiano: Let me say that when I was at Ducati, for example, I never had the pleasure of working with them, because I was out of Ducati when they arrived. So I came across them the time that I started to work in Aprilia. Unfortunately, as we know the story, with Jorge, we didn't have any time to work together, because we had just had a first contact point in Barcelona. Then at Sepang (Malaysia), and then the race weekend, which was his return. So it was just to relax and try to find your limit. It's quite difficult to make any kind of judgment. On the other hand, Marco has been an outstanding surprise. Looking from the outside, he seems to be easy, in terms of social attitude, super funny, super smart. But when he starts to work, he's unbelievable. He is super committed, super focused. He's a maniac of any kind of detailing, what we can do in the bike and what we can improve in the bike. And even if we have some good performance, he'll finish the race by commenting on something that could have been done better. And this is the right approach. Marco Bezzecchi is currently placed third in the 2025 MotoGP rider standings behind Alex Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia HT Auto: And what about Lorenzo? Where do you fit him into the larger scheme of things? Fabiano: Lorenzo is a super good guy in terms of talent and speed. When we started together, when he was replacing Martin in the fifth race. He was somehow unripe, not ready to be at that stage. We worked quite a lot with him, in terms of creating the right conditions that we see, to test a lot of things during the race weekend. Because the consistency of the rider is super important to be able to analyse data, to try to understand that we can gauge the difference in terms of physical parameters. So we work with him to try to be consistent, to improve the riding style and the repeatability of his riding. But in the meantime, we tried to work on his speed. To be honest, we have been monitoring since the beginning of the season, the gap in terms of fastest lap time between who won the race and Lorenzo. We went in the beginning of the season from 2.2 seconds of gap to less than a second in the last three races. That for sure has been quite a good learning process for Lorenza. On one side, to improve his speed, and on the other side, to try to dive into the problem. One important point of the test rider is not just to let me see step out from the bike, step off from the bike, say, I have a problem. But at a test on Friday, you have to describe the solution that you tested, which is a good point. If there is some interesting potential thing that we have to explore, or how we can compensate and help the rider to take the benefit of the solution. So, that is an important job, and for sure we did an improvement during the month. But obviously, we have to keep working. He's already at a good level of the job. HT Auto: Where do you see Marco stepping out at the end of the season? He's currently playing sixth in the standings, but where do you see him finish by the end of the 2025 season? Fabiano: I think that one of the targets should be immediately behind the three fastest Ducati riders. That's something that could have been possible without the crash. But clearly, because with the 20 more points, we were in front of the other two. We were fourth. I believe that to be realistic with the clear challenge, a clear target, fourth in the championship in terms of rider championship, and second in the manufacture championship should be the target. I'm not excluding because you know, several times in the past, the motorcycle war taught you not to keep yourself within some limit. Why not also aim to do something better? I believe that trying to finish third is not impossible. It's much more realistic to finish between fourth and fifth, rather than third, but third is not impossible. HT Auto: How do you see the concessions affecting the team going forward? Fabiano: With the points over the last race, we were probably closing the chapter now. Now it's still open, but we are speaking, if I'm not wrong, about 10 receiver points. So I think that probably here we could close the story without taking into consideration moving to Rank D. But in any case, if we have this opportunity, obviously, something that we will exploit for the next one. We jump from in Rank C to D, is basically due to the last six months. So in case we have the next three points at the end of the season, I believe that if we move to rank D, we can maintain it till the middle of 2026. Aprilia is looking to conclude the 2025 MotoGP season in the top three in the riders' standings and in second place in the constructors' championship HT Auto: How's the preparation going for the new regulations coming in from 2027? Fabiano: We've started to walk in parallel because it's a completely different project in terms of engine and everything around. We have a new engine because regulations are quite different. We have a new tyre, we have a new fuel. So basically, we have everything new. We start the job fixing some milestones of the project, some characteristics and specifications. It starts with changing, not because it's the most important thing, but because it's part of the project with a longer time in terms of period, basically weeks. So now the engineering is everything done in terms of designing the component. And basically, we suppose that arriving at the end of the season, we have some engine test, and then at the beginning of 2026, we keep working on the new project in parallel with the 2026 season. At a certain time, we will have to stop work on the 2026 season and focus on 2027 completely. Check out Upcoming Bikes In India. First Published Date:
New Indian Express
01-08-2025
- Automotive
- New Indian Express
Rahil Pillarisetty grabs pole position with a stunning lap
Hyderabad's Rahil Pillarisetty (RACR Castrol Power1) delivered a stunning lap late in the qualifying session to take pole position in the premier Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open category to kick start his campaign in the Rolon Round of the MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship 2025 at the Kari Motor Speedway, here on Friday. Others who qualified for pole positions in their respective National championship categories were: Raj Kumar (Coimbatore, Motul Sparks Racing) in Super Stock 165cc Intermediate; Mohamed Mikail (Thiruvallur, Mad Rabbit Racing) in Stock 301-400cc (Novice) and Charu Sreekara Kedarnadh (Tirupati, Motul KTM Gusto Racing India) in Stock 165cc (Novice). The 27-year-old Pillarisetty's best lap of one minute, 10.972 secs which he clocked at the fag end of the session saw him pip Petronas TVS Racing's teenaged riders, Chiranth Vishwanath from Bengaluru and defending champion Sarthak Chavan (Pune) with less than a second separating the front-row trio. 'I am happy to be back on the Yamaha R3 after a few seasons on KTM. I had a good lap today, but it is all so close, and I look forward to tomorrow's race,' said 27-year-old Rahil who announced his presence on the grid in the first round in June when he won Race-2, holding off Sarthak in a tense finish. Chiranth, the 17-year-old Bengalurean said: 'I had some issues with my bike, but Rahil was quick. I am not happy with P2 for tomorrow's race. Hopefully, I will do better.' Sarthak, 18, shrugged off his P3 qualification. 'The pressure will be on him (Rahil) tomorrow. I will try to do my best in the race,' he said. Jammu's Raivat Dhar qualified for pole position in the Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup (Honda CB300F), while in the Petronas TVS India One-Make Championship, Chennai's Mohan Babu (Expert), and Jagathishree Kumaresan (Women), also from Chennai, grabbed pole positions in their respective classes. Provisional results (Qualifying – top 3 best laps): National Championship: Pro-Stock 301-400cc Open: 1. Rahil Pillarisetty (Hyderabad, RACR Castrol Power1) (01min, 10.972secs); 2. Chiranth Vishwanath (Bengaluru, Petronas TVS Racing) (01:11.249); 3. Sarthak Chavan (Pune, Petronas TVS Racing) (01:11.262). Super Stock 165cc Intermediate: 1. Raj Kumar (Coimbatore, Motul Sparks Racing) (01:23.303); 2. Mohammed Samrul Zubair (Hyderabad, Motul Sparks Racing) (01:24.517); 3. Kamal Navas (Chennai, Rockers Racing) (01:24.683). Stock 301-400cc (Novice): 1. Mohamed Mikail (Thiruvallur, Mad Rabbit Racing) (01:18.533); 2. Varun Patil (Bengaluru, Mad Rabbit Racing) (01:19.447); 3. Jagadeesh Nagaraj (Bengaluru, Motul Sparks Racing) (01:19.703). Stock 165cc (Novice): 1. Charu Sreekara Kedarnadh (Tirupati, Motul KTM Gusto Racing India) (01:27.101); 2. Tejash BA (Tumakuru, Mad Rabbit Racing) (01:27.428); 3. Rajender Beedani (Hyderabad, MAI Racing) (01:27.433). Petronas TVS India One-Make Championship: Expert (Apache RR 310): 1. Mohan Babu P (Chennai) (01:16.625); 2. Siddesh Sawant (Kolhapur) (01:17.099); 3. Abdul Basim (Chennai) (01:17:310). Women (Apache RTR 200): 1. Jagathishree Kumaresan (Chennai) (01:27.718); 2. SP Shuria (Bengaluru) (01:28.185); 3. Elakiya Ravi (Chennai) (01:28.580). Idemitsu Honda India Talent Cup: Honda CB300F: 1. Raivat Dhar (Jammu) (01:23.424); 2. Tejash BA (Malappuram) (01:24.022); 3. Amit Prasad (Bengaluru) (01:24.175). SOURCE: Organisers
Hindustan Times
25-06-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Looking for a great-sounding motorbike? Check out these 5 twin-cylinder machines
The internal combustion engine (ICE) has not only kept the enthusiast alive, but the exhaust note is what makes every model distinctive from the other. A good exhaust note is not only a pleasure to the ear but also a subtle flex of having the right machine between your legs. While some like it louder, others find the raspier note, the way to go. If you are in the market for a great-sounding motorcycle, here are five twin-cylinder options to choose from. From the Aprilia RS 457 to the Kawasaki Ninja 650, there's something for everyone who likes a great-sounding motorcycle The Kawasaki Ninja 650 gets a sweet-sounding parallel-twin motor that remains likeable across the rev band 1. Kawasaki Ninja 650 The Kawasaki Ninja 650 is a mainstay in the middleweight sportbike segment, powered by a 649cc, liquid-cooled, parallel-twin engine that churns out 67.3 bhp and 64 Nm of torque. This is a quick motor and gets louder as you open the throttle more generously. The sweet-sounding motor keeps things refined, and you know you are in for a treat post the 5,000 rpm mark. The bike comes equipped with a TFT display with Bluetooth connectivity, LED lighting, dual-channel ABS, and traction control. The sports tourer weighs 196 kg and can sprint from 0-100 kmph in just 3.92 seconds with a top speed of 210 kmph. The Kawasaki Ninja 650 is priced at ₹ 7.27 lakh (ex-showroom) in India. The Aprilia RS 457 and Tuono 457 are available with a 457 cc parallel-twin motor with a meaty exhaust 2. Aprilia RS 457 & Tuono 457 The Aprilia RS 457 and Tuono 457 are made-in-India twin-cylinder motorcycles, and the most powerful ones to be locally produced. The bikes bring Italian flair to the segment with the 457 cc parallel-twin engine producing 46.9 bhp and 43.5 Nm of torque. The exhaust note on both machines has a strong grunt that gives the impression of a 'big' bike, just what you need to stand out. Despite the aggressive and sharp styling, the bike offers a sporty yet comfortable riding posture and predictable throttle response, making it accessible to newer riders, too. At just 175 kg, it accelerates from 0 to 100 kmph in 4.99 seconds and hits a top speed of 190 kmph. The RS 457 is attractively priced at ₹ 4.20 lakh, while the Tuono 457 is priced at ₹ 3.95 lakh (ex-showroom) (Also read: Aprilia Tuono 457 first ride review: The RS gets more versatile) The Yamaha R3 is a sharp motorcycle with an ultra-refined exhaust note, perfect for those who don't like to shout 3. Yamaha R3 Quick, cool, and sharp, the Yamaha R3 features a 321 cc, liquid-cooled, twin-cylinder engine that delivers 41.4 bhp and 29.5 Nm of torque. Its lightweight chassis (169 kg), smooth power delivery, and balanced handling make it a great choice for both beginners and experienced riders. The R3 can go from 0-100 kmph in about 6 seconds and reach a top speed of 188 kmph, while sounding refined with a strong aural note when the throttle stays open. The Yamaha R3 comes at a price tag of ₹ 3.59 lakh (ex-showroom). The Kawasaki Ninja 300 comes with a fantastic exhaust note, which has little to do with its age 4. Kawasaki Ninja 300 Though slightly dated in tech and design, the Kawasaki Ninja 300 still offers an enjoyable ride with its 296cc parallel-twin engine, producing 38.8 bhp and 26.1 Nm of torque. The engine comes with a fantastic exhaust note, which has little to do with its age. The bike has a kerb weight of 179 kg, and can accelerate from 0-100 kmph in 5.6 seconds with a top speed of 182 kmph. The Ninja 300 is currently priced at ₹ 3.43 lakh (ex-showroom), and is easily one of the best-sounding twin-cylinders on sale. The Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 gets the likeable 648 cc parallel-twin mill that has a strong rumble coming from its twin silencers 5. Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 Royal Enfield's cafe racer knows how to make a statement, especially with its twin silencers. Powered by the tried and tested 648 cc parallel-twin, air-cooled motor tuned for 46.3 bhp and 52 Nm, this middleweight offering may not have the traditional thump of a 'RE' motorcycle, but there's so much. The engine is raspy and hits the right notes, balancing well between old-school feel and a modern rumble. The Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 is priced from ₹ 3.22 lakh (ex-showroom).
Hindustan Times
17-06-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Looking for a great-sounding motorbike? Here are 5 bikes with a twin-cylinder
Priced at ₹ 3.59 lakh, the Yamaha R3 is a great choice for both beginners and seasoned riders Its 321cc, liquid-cooled, twin-cylinder makes 41.4 bhp and 29.5 Nm of torque. The Aprilia RS 457 features a 457cc parallel-twin making 46.9 bhp and 43.5 Nm of torque At ₹ 4.20 lakh, it is a highly appealing offering in the entry-level sports bike segment The Kawasaki Ninja 650 is a popular supersport with a great soundtrack for ₹ 7.27 lakh The Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 makes 46.8 bhp and 52.3 Nm of peak torque At ₹ 3.03 lakh, it is the most affordable 650-Twin offered by Royal Enfield The Aprilia Tuono 457 is the streetfighter version of the RS 457 and comes at ₹ 3.95 lakh It has the same 457cc paralle-twin making 46.9 bhp and 43.5 Nm of torque To watch our Tuono 457 review... Click Here
Hindustan Times
14-06-2025
- Automotive
- Hindustan Times
Searching for a great-sounding motorbike? Here are 5 bikes with a twin-cylinder engine
The Yamaha R3 is a bike that gets a twin-cylinder engine and it competes with the Aprilia RS457, KTM RC 390 and the Kawasaki Ninja 300. If you're in the category of enthusiasts who derive pleasure from the exhaust note of your motorbike, then you might find twin-cylinder bikes more interesting as compared to those with only a single cylinder. The dual pistons firing make an audible difference to the growl of the exhaust note, making it sound louder and sometimes even raspier. Besides, dual pot engines are generally much smoother revving at higher speeds, owing to their inherently balanced nature. (Also check out: Upcoming bikes in India) Twin-cylinder bikes offer the perfect middle ground between refinement and adrenaline. Known for their smoother power delivery, throaty exhaust notes, and punchy mid-range, twin-cylinder motorcycles are gaining traction among Indian riders. Here's a curated list of five exciting twin-cylinder bikes that not only sound amazing but also bring a blend of sporty styling, everyday usability, and sheer riding fun. If you're on the lookout for an affordable twin-cylinder bike, whether you're upgrading from a single-cylinder bike or entering the world of performance motorcycles, your options are plenty. Each one caters to a slightly different type of rider, but all of them guarantee a more refined and exciting riding experience. Here are some of the most interesting options: 1 Kawasaki Ninja 650 The Kawasaki Ninja 650 is a mainstay in the middleweight sportbike segment, powered by a 649cc, liquid-cooled, parallel-twin engine that churns out 67.3 bhp and 64 Nm of torque. It features a modern TFT display, Bluetooth connectivity, LED lighting, and traction control. With an upright riding posture and light clutch, it's equally suited for city rides and highway fun. Weighing 196 kg, it sprints from 0-100 kmph in just 3.92 seconds and has a top speed of 210 kmph. The Ninja 650 is priced at ₹ 7.27 lakh (ex-showroom) in India. Check out Upcoming Bikes In India. First Published Date: 14 Jun 2025, 15:00 PM IST NEXT ARTICLE BEGINS
