MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Cristian Gabarrini (right) celebrating with Pecco Bagnaia after winning the Dutch TT at Assen in 2022

It is hard to overstate just how big the turnaround of Pecco Bagnaia's season was in 2022. Going into the Dutch TT at Assen, Bagnaia trailed championship leader Fabio Quartararo by 91 points. Ten races later, Bagnaia clinched the championship at Valencia with an advantage of 17 points. The Italian had clawed back 108 points in ten races, an average of nearly 11 points a race.

The man who helped Bagnaia achieve that incredible comeback has experience winning world championships. Ducati Lenovo Team crew chief Cristian Gabarrini already had two MotoGP titles under his belt with Casey Stoner, first at Ducati, then at Honda. He oversaw Marc Márquez' first championship in 2013, as technical advisor in the Repsol Honda team, before returning to Ducati.

He is a quiet, modest man, softly spoken, who weighs his words carefully. That meticulousness is also apparent in his work as a crew chief: Pecco Bagnaia's garage is well organized and well run, the bike always ready for Bagnaia when he needs it. He is thoughtful, his responses to questions revealing a very sharp intellect indeed.

At Sepang, I had a long and very in-depth interview with Cristian Gabarrini. We spoke about the pressure of defending a championship, how sprint races will change MotoGP this season, how Pecco Bagnaia turned his season around, and the change Gabarrini saw in the Italian.

The CEO of Ducati Corse, the racing division of the manufacturer that won the jackpot in the 2022 racing season, sat in the snow during the launch of Ducati's 2023 season, with a glass of prosecco in hand, for a personal conversation and ... engineered

Luigi, or Gigi as everyone calls him, Dall'Igna always dreamed of working in racing. He graduated in mechanical engineering at the University of Padua with a thesis on carbon monocoque chassis. Almost straight out of university he moved to the Aprilia factory in Noale, Italy. Over more than two decades, he led Aprilia to championship titles in World Superbikes and the 125 and 250 cc categories in MotoGP, with riders such as Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Alvaro Bautista, Marco Melandri, Manuel Poggiali, and Max Biaggi of course.

Then Dall'Igna surprised the world of motorsport when he accepted an offer from rival manufacturer Ducati. Since graduating, he has only worked for Aprilia, except for a very short time in 2005 when he worked for Derbi. For the 2014 season, Dall'Igna was on his way to try to make the difference, as he did in Aprilia, only this time for the factory in Bologna.

Gigi is considered a legend, a magician, a brain, and Ducati was very excited by the arrival of someone who later made radical changes in the racing department. Ducati were in a crisis, after a long decline which had started shortly after winning their first title with Casey Stoner in 2007. The culmination of the crisis was the failure with one of the greatest riders ever, Valentino Rossi. Ducati knew that in order to come back and win, replacing riders would not be enough this time.

Being the official tire supplier to MotoGP has a lot of benefits. The data gathered from 300 bhp bikes which can reach over 60° of lean angle and brake at well over 1.5G is an invaluable resource for Michelin's R&D department, and technologies developed in MotoGP go directly into the French manufacturer's consumer tires.

But it also means being the first port of call when riders feel the need to point the finger of blame. With factories imposing harsh penalties on riders for criticizing their bikes, it is often cheaper and much easier to blame the tires. Whether justly or not.

That was also the case at the Sepang test, where riders were complaining about the limited number of tires they had at their disposal. "We had to test many things and we didn’t have many tires for this test so basically today we had to use the tires that we didn’t really want and it was not easy," said Fabio Quartararo on the first day of the test, his complaints typical of the riders.

Enough tires?

During one of the rain delays of the Sepang Test, I asked Piero Taramasso, Michelin's manager of two-wheeled motorsport about this. Did riders only have ten sets of slick tires for the test? "Yes, this is regulation," Taramasso told me. "It's always been the same since 10 years or more. So no change compared to previous seasons."

Ten sets of tires should be more than enough for a test, Taramasso said. "They can use 10 sets of slick tires, so with 10 sets of slick tires it means 260 laps. So they can do 260 laps in three days. That's 80 laps per day."

Diego Gubellini talking to Fabio Quartararo on the grid at the Red Bull Ring in Austria

Fabio Quartararo missed out on the 2022 MotoGP title by a handful of points. The advantage Pecco Bagnaia had going into the final round was too great to overcome at Valencia. Given the lack of horsepower the 2022 Yamaha M1 had, it was impressive that Quartararo took the championship down to the final race.

Quartararo's feat was down in no small part to his crew chief, Diego Gubellini. The Italian, who was paired with the Frenchman in what was then the Petronas Yamaha satellite squad and moved up to the factory Monster Energy Yamaha team with him, helped Quartararo extract every ounce of performance from the M1.

I spoke to Gubellini on the Thursday before the final race, looking back at the 2022 season and how he and Quartararo worked to get the best out of the Yamaha M1. He talked about his role as crew chief, maximizing the speed of the Yamaha, and his role in the development of the 2023 machine.

Suzuki's MotoGP activities finally came to an end with the Valencia GP, the final round of the 2022 season. Since the bombshell news of Suzuki Motor Corporation's decision to withdraw at the end of the season hit the world this May, every venue and every racetrack has become a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all the team members of Team SUZUKI ECSTAR. On Thursday afternoon, before Team SUZUKI ECSTAR's final race at the Circuit de Valencia Ricardo Tormo, we spoke with Shinichi Sahara, the project leader who has been leading the team for twenty years.

In the second part of this two-part interview, Sahara-san discusses how Suzuki's decision to withdraw at the end of 2022 compares with 2011, when Suzuki paused participation in the premier class. He talks about what will happen to the team at the end of the season, the chances of a return, and the joy of Alex Rins' victories at Phillip Island and Valencia.

Q: Your withdrawal is inevitably compared to that of 2011, but in 2011, it was an announcement of “suspension of activities".

Shinichi Sahara: In that sense, it is different from this time. Although it was a suspension, returning to the racing was very tough. And after returning, it needs a lot of effort to become competitive and fight at the top level. Therefore, even at that time, we did everything to persuade them not to suspend racing activities. In that sense, this is the second time we have worked like this. Although there are some similarities, suspension and withdrawal are different things. Anyway, I think once is enough for this experience!

Suzuki's MotoGP activities finally came to an end with the Valencia GP, the final round of the 2022 season. Since the bombshell news of Suzuki Motor Corporation's decision to withdraw at the end of the season hit the world this May, every venue and every racetrack has become a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all the team members of Team SUZUKI ECSTAR. On Thursday afternoon, before Team SUZUKI ECSTAR's final race at the Circuit de Valencia Ricardo Tormo, we spoke with Shinichi Sahara, the project leader who has been leading the team for twenty years.

In the first part of this two-part interview, Sahara-san discusses in depth how Suzuki's decision to withdraw at the end of 2022 affected the team's season, and how the team handled it.

Q: This weekend must be very emotional for you. First of all, I would like to know what you are feeling now.

Shinichi Sahara: It is true that this is our last race, but to be honest, I try as much as possible not to think about it. I told my team members ‘let's do things as we always do to make a solid weekend’ because it is the best way to win the race, and this is what we always do in every race weekend. In the final part of the season, not only the engines but also a lot of chassis parts already have a lot of mileage on them, so we have to avoid any possibility of small troubles in order to have our riders give their 100% to demonstrate their potential and our bikes'.

Q: Do you feel that your last race has finally come?

2022 has been a strange year for Yamaha. It started off on the wrong foot, when the Japanese factory was forced to give up on the more powerful engine they had intended to race this season and run a revised version of the 2021 engine (which, thanks to the Covid-19 engine freeze, was basically the 2020 engine) for this year.

Despite the obvious lack of engine performance, by the time MotoGP reached the summer break after Assen, Fabio Quartararo had a comfortable lead in the championship, sitting ahead of Aleix Espargaro by 21 points, and the man billed as his main title rival for 2022, Pecco Bagnaia, by 66 points.

Elsewhere, there were signs of trouble. While Quartararo was winning races and leading the championship, his Monster Energy Yamaha Franco Morbidelli was struggling just to score points. Over at the RNF team, Andrea Dovizioso jumped on a Yamaha only to find he had spent too long on a Ducati to be able to figure out how to ride it, and retired again after Misano. Darryn Binder had a big hill to climb going straight to MotoGP from Moto3, and found himself crashing along the way. And after the summer break, RNF announced they would be switching to Aprilia for the 2023 season.

As he approaches the 346th and final Grand Prix of a storied career, Andrea Dovizoso gives his impressions on the current state of MotoGP, a 21-year career and what the future holds.

There’s no dressing it up. His latest – and last – career foray has not gone to plan for Andrea Dovizioso. The veteran Italian, who has racked up a world championship and 15 premier class wins across a decorated 21-year stay in the grand prix paddock, had visions of fighting for race wins and more when he returned during a career sabbatical last September.

Instead, the 36-year old has been reduced to a bit-part player in a series where he used to have a leading role. His struggles aboard the 2022 RNF Yamaha M1 have been so bad that he’s claimed just eleven points from the first 13 races. After failing to confirm he’d complete the full season before the summer break, it was announced Dovizioso would call time on his career six races early, after competing at Misano – his home GP.

It’s been tough at times to watch the figure that pushed Marc Marquez hardest between 2017 and 2019 struggle in such fashion. Across the past six months, there have been no real signs of progress, and only a few fleeting moments when he claims to have felt comfortable, more natural aboard a bike which requires a polar opposite riding technique to Ducati’s Desmosedici machinery, which he commanded for eight years. Prior to his final race, Dovizioso had failed to finish closer than 20 seconds to the race winner – an eon to a man of his pedigree.

Aprilia Team Manager Paolo Bonora explains to Neil Morrison how the factory has nurtured Maverick Viñales to a level where he is a MotoGP contender once again.

Would it be fair to say Mack is back? If not now, then top figures at Aprilia are confident it won’t be long until Maverick Viñales is on the top step of the podium once more, in part thanks to a good deal of patience and a careful strategy of man-management.

It hadn’t been an easy start to life in Aprilia colours for the enigmatic Catalan. He finished higher than tenth just twice in his first 13 races aboard the RS-GP, a bike that could currently be hailed as the most rounded package on the grid, and one that could yet win this year’s championship with teammate Aleix Espargaro.

But the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was vindication for the faith Aprilia has shown in the former Moto3 World Champion. While his performance lacked a touch of composure in the critical moments, it was the first time Viñales was clearly the fastest rider on track in any race since his explosive exit from Yamaha this month a year ago.

What’s more, the 27-year old mentioned he had “started laughing” when up front, fighting among the Ducatis of Francesco Bagnaia, Jack Miller and Jorge Martin. It has been quite some time when Viñales has appeared so comfortable and content both on the bike and off it.

Nobuatsu Aoki finished his road racing career as a rider at the 2022 Suzuka 8 Hours Race at the age of fifty. As the eldest of well-known Aoki three brothers, Nobu had already shown his potential in the All Japan Road Race Championship when he was a teenager back in the early 1990s. Soon after, he moved up to the 250cc grand prix class, and took an impressive victory in Malaysia in 1993. Then in 1997, he stepped up to the 500cc class to ride for Honda NSR500. He also experienced the dawn of the 4-stroke MotoGP era in Proton KR team before becoming a test rider for Suzuki.

Backed by rich experience, knowledge, and skill, his words are always full of deep insight. And his sense of humor adds a unique flavor to them. We spoke with Nobu for an hour-long interview at Suzuka Circuit on Thursday evening, the day before his last race weekend started.

Q: First of all, could you tell us a little bit about the reason why you have decided to retire from racing?

NA: The reason? Nothing but my age! Unfortunately, when you get old, your body doesn’t respond as it used to. Although I have always been training very hard, in my late 30s, I felt something changed in my body. Then, when you turned forty, that strange feeling started growing even more. For sure, I still think I am still young like a teenager. However, if you train hard like a teenager and ignore your age, you can very easily end up with an injury in training. You run very hard, you lift a heavy barbell like you used to do, then you pull your muscles or injure your joint!