Giuseppe Busato - Aprilia Racing Engine Academy

Giuseppe Busato - Aprilia Racing Engine Academy

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It is a well known fact that life is always fraught with surprises. It is with this frame of mind that we can tell the story of a brilliant Agricultural Studies student, who find himself working in one of the greatest racing teams in history. The farm where Giuseppe Busato is born is in the right area, since it is only a short distance from that famous racing company whose motorbikes win around the world, and it’s not like Giuseppe doesn’t think about motorbikes. Not only he thinks about them, he tweaks them, he disassembles and reassembles them, he races his friends on the country roads in the north-eastern Italy. His uncle has a brilliant intuition, looking at his nephew and his blazing passion.

“He told me to attend a course – Giuseppe explains – a very specific one, with practical connotations. Motorcycles maintenance, 9 months long, during which time I learnt all the secrets: from mechanics to electronics, from fairings to accessories. I was introduced to Aprilia in 1998, at the end of an internship, and they chucked me right at the deep end! I was with a close friend, who had also attended the course with me, and we found ourselves straight in the midst of the action. We started out in the Guarantees division.”

Then the racing division comes calling.

“In 2005 we were at the height of the “two-stroke engine” era. They put me alongside one of the most experienced mechanics, he was a wiz of working the cylinders. We were preparing the 125 and 250 engines that were racing at the time. They were gems.“

When the shift to the four-stroke engine happened, it meant a new important project for you...

“I started working on the two-cylinders 450-550 in all their different variations: cross, motard and rally. That was a tricky engine, very advanced and pretty complex, but once we got the hang of it we had some great results.” 

Now you are managing the seamless gearbox at the track. 

“Not a problem, in the box you are working very well. We all worked hard to achieve our goals. I do not hide, however, that sometimes I feel a greater incentive, I think it is natural.” 

You encountered some skepticism, initially.

“Not from the inside, but from the outside. Very few people believed that little Aprilia could develop a seamless gearbox. We believed it was possible since the beginning, and the results tell us we were right. We have reached, in my opinion, a very promising level both from a reliability point of view, than from a performance one. Now we have to keep on refining, calibrating, compacting. The base is there, though, and it’s very good.” 

What was the motivating factor to accept the on-track challenge? 

“After developing the gearbox in the racing department, it didn’t feel right to abandon it. It might sound strange, but I feel it is a creature of mine. When Walter Scattolin, the gearbox head engineer, decided to take it on the official MotoGP, I couldn’t not go with him.”  

What goes through your head once the bike is out of the box?

“I start thinking about the million things that could go wrong. A racing motorbike is a product of so many people that every single detail could affect the work as a whole. You have to consider that when you are on track, the time you have at your disposal for maintenance is minimal. You have to bring your A game every single second.” 

Do you think we’ll see commercial motorbikes with a seamless gearbox? 

"Seeing the reactions of our seamless in the harsh operating conditions of MotoGP, I think it could easily be fitted to a production bike. But honestly I would see it as a good option to use on the track, where it can produce a real advantage. On the road, current Quickshift transmissions of stock bikes work fine; a seamless would be wasted and in the face of greater complexity may not offer a significant advantage to the biker. "