Aprilia Racing venture with Tuareg destined for Dakar
A curious announcement dropped into our inbox not too long ago from Aprilia stating their goal to take the Tuareg 660 journey bike platform racing with a return to the highest rally raid competitions together with Dakar.
What makes this notably intriguing is that for some years now engine capacities in these occasions have been restricted to 450 cc engine, in a quest to maintain speeds down.
Aprilia’s announcement maybe hints that adjustments are afoot in World Rally Championship occasions to permit bigger capability machines again into these occasions.
This is able to in fact make participation and the help of such occasions way more palatable to the bike firm beancounters and advertising groups. The present 450 cc machines are already racing beneath prime velocity controls that are GPS tracked and little doubt this is able to be how speeds can be stored down if the competitors was to return to greater capability machines.
Aprilia have acknowledged that the racing model of the brand new Aprilia Tuareg 660 will likely be developed by Aprilia Racing with technical enter from GCorse (brother’s Gianfranco and Vittoriano Guareschi), who already labored on the Tuareg participating within the Italian Motorally Championship over the course of 2022.
Involvement within the Tricolore Motorally will proceed in 2023, a season that will likely be completely targeted on growing a venture that has proven huge potential proper from the beginning. The beginning line will function two Tuareg 660s entrusted to Jacopo Cerutti and Francesco Montanari.
Cerutti, 34, who brings his personal intensive expertise to Aprilia Racing improvement: the rider from Como has a number of Italian Motorally wins to his identify, in addition to bringing dwelling 4 Italian and one European Enduro titles and having participated in Dakar six occasions already. He will likely be backed by Francesco Montanari, a national-level Enduro rider who achieved an important rookie efficiency on the Tricolore Motorally final 12 months.
Alongside Aprilia Racing’s Tuareg venture, Aprilia may also be current on the venues of the 2023 Italian Motorally to offer help for all these driving a Tuareg 660 within the new GPX “entry degree” class, which was particularly created to make the Championship extra accessible.
The Aprilia Tuareg venture will likely be overseen by Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola.
Massimo Rivola – Aprilia Racing CEO
“With its ‘Again to Africa’ venture, Aprilia Racing is returning to the world of off-road racing, to the races that solid the division. We wish to continue to grow on the planet of Grand Prix bike racing and on-track races. We wish to uncover new expertise by way of our SP 250 Championship and the RS 660 Trophy, however we’re additionally embarking on a totally new venture with the extraordinary Aprilia Tuareg. It’s a further signal of improvement for a racing division that has grown considerably over the previous years reaching outcomes by no means earlier than seen by Aprilia”.
Romano Albesiano – Aprilia Racing Technical Director
“We’re choosing up the baton from a historical past of nice successes. Aprilia is the one Italian model to have received a stage of the Dakar Rally and, in 2010, we took the final podium within the general rating. These are simply the primary steps in a totally new venture, and the aim of the 2023 season will likely be to begin us on the trail that may take us again to the nice desert races. However one factor is for certain: the bike will likely be solid from the values which have at all times marked Aprilia’s racing endeavours: innovation within the service of efficiency”.
After its first epic look within the Paris-Dakar with the Tuareg in 1989, Aprilia returned to the nice desert race in 2010 with a revolutionary RXV Rally 450 twin that will take part in three consecutive editions of the Dakar from 2010 to 2012. The spectacular Rally instantly earned three stage victories and took third place general in 2010, narrowly lacking the wonderful goal of a rookie triumph.
