All MotoGP cars undergo a warm-up of their engine before being handed over to their riders at the start of the session. Chronologically, they are even warmed up the evening before, once their configuration is finalized, then the engine is warmed up again around a quarter of an hour before the start of each session. That's what we can see or hear, but before that, behind the closed doors of the boxes, each manufacturer has its own little particularities...
At Aprilia, we clearly feel the influence of F1 since the arrival of Massimo rivola and this results in a multitude of small details visible even in the red and black box. For the subject that interests us, we notice for example the presence of four small radiators under the oil pan of the RS-GP.
As with all competition engines, we can assume that the Noale V4 has a dry sump lubrication system, that is to say with a limited quantity of oil in the crankcase, the rest being located in what it's called an oil tarpaulin. We will not develop here the advantages of this system (no planing and no sparging, therefore more safety and more power) but we will note that there still remains a small quantity of oil at the bottom of the crankcase and, visibly , this is heated before starting the engine, making it possible to reduce as much as possible the delicate phase of cold starting of the latter.
In the absence of the heavy installations required on the F1 engine benches, where oil and water are brought to temperature before the engine is started, this uses the principle, in a much more mobile version.
We haven't seen such precautions from other manufacturers, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. On the other hand, we have noticed that at Yamaha, since this has existed, the cylinder of the rear Ride Height Device has been heated. We remember the problems encountered by fabio quartararo in Valencia in 2020, where the French driver, after a fall in the first lap behind Aleix Espargaró, had to deal with erratic behavior from his Ride Height Device.
« We had a problem with the starting device (frame height) for a few laps. Sometimes the device just kept the bike low, it would go down automatically. It was a bit like having a rear puncture, which made the front really light. It was strange because for more or less half the race we had the bike down, sometimes it would come up, but many times the starting device was just locked. »
This may have already happened before, out of sight, but the fact remains that since then, we have been warming up the Ride Height Device without necessarily hiding, before sending the M1 onto the track. In fact, we bring it to its operating temperature, around a hundred degrees, in an environment very close to the exhaust.
Manually controlled, the Ride Height Device is a sort of hydraulic shock absorber, located between the swinging arm and the suspension return, which allows the motorcycle's center of gravity to be lowered when exiting certain turns to delay the wheelie and thus be able to pass more power. Warming it up first allows you to check that it is not leaking, but above all to ensure that its behavior will be stable throughout the run.
