Submitted by Press Release on
Ducati Motor Holding today issued the following press release, announcing that former head of Ducati Corse Filippo Preziosi is to step down from his position on health grounds:
Engineer Filippo Preziosi resigns from Ducati Motor Holding
- For reasons of poor health, Filippo Preziosi has taken the decision to resign his position
- The company thanks him for 19 years of outstanding professional service
- The now vacant position of Ducati Motor Holding Director of R&D to be announced
Borgo Panigale, (Bologna, Italy) 28 February 2013 - Engineer, Filippo Preziosi, has communicated his intention to resign from his position at Ducati Motor Holding.
Declaring reasons of poor health related to his particular physical condition, Preziosi’s resignation was accepted by Ducati, saddened and disappointed to lose such an accomplished and strategic member of staff. The company respectfully acknowledges the 45-year old Italian’s decision and thanks him for his significant contribution during his 19 years with Ducati, 12 of which were within Ducati Corse.
Previously occupying the role of General Manager of Ducati Corse, Preziosi, was appointed Director of Research and Development of Ducati Motor Holding at the end of 2012 and was to start his new role after a period of rest. An announcement of the successor to this strategic role, now left vacant by the resignation, will be communicated in due course.
Comments
Makes you wonder
Given Preziosi's physical disability, the above is surely plausible, but one can't help wondering if Filippo has suffered a mental blow by the failure of the Desmosedici to be competitive even with Rossi in the saddle, and the loss of his position in the GP team.
He will have a tough time for sure. Anyway, I applaud him for designing something very different from the norm and pushing technical boundaries. Maybe his design was fundamentally flawed, but it surely was not helped by the increasing limitations in the rule book, which directs all manufacturers in the same sort of construction.
Also we seem to have forgotten the many successes the 990's of 2003 to 2006 had, almost grasping the title in the final year.
Good luck to him.
P.S.
Not to mention of course the title of the first 800 in 2007 and the many, many wins from 2007 to 2010. All but one (Capirossi in Motegi 2007) with Stoner in the saddle, but still, with the right rider the bike was a winner.
Color me not surprised if
Color me not surprised if there is press release from Aprlia or BMW later this year stating him as a new hire.
health? Just like the pope
health? Just like the pope
It's not retirement
in my view either, and I hope that we are right. Much as he has been the brunt of a lot of frustrations over the MGP bike (incl. mine) he is, clearly, a talented engineer and it would be good to see him move on and make a success of things elsewhere, once his health recovers. 6 months off after the bruising of the last 2 years would be about right, I should think.
I don’t know his role in their WSBK efforts, but the current performance of the Panigale would be a good parting memento, even if the MGP bike wasn’t quite there (bearing in mind that 2 seconds is not much more than 1.5% at most circuits). It’s a fine line……
Not surprising.
His motogp tenure turned into a total disaster, and the new riders this year merely reinforce what a debacle that bike and its "development" has been.
He designed beautiful machines, with wonderful engines, and then saddled them with a structure that was more art than useful. He'd have been a wonderful idea guy, but designing the whole bike has not panned out well.
Not so sure...
I think total disaster is very harsh, and when looked at objectively and in relative terms he accomplished an absolutely incredible amount.
He designed a bike with a fraction of the budget of his competitors, who have had decades more design experience to pull from, vast personnel resources to pound at different ideas at an R&D level... and ended up with a bike that is 1 second off the times of the very pinnacle of Japanese engineering prestige. And even beat the two titans of Suzuki and Kawasaki on a regular basis. So, in relative terms, not too bad.
And I've never really bought the whole "Preziosi stubbornness" bashing. It may be true, I really don't know... but, in my experience, people like Preziosi don't achieve that level of status within a company like Ducati without having an incredible capacity to listen and take input from his team. Engineering is very much a team effort, and you can't run a team at that level without having an extreme capacity to take on ideas other than your own. He may have made the wrong decisions based on the information given him, but, in my opinion him being stubborn is just unrealistic.
I know engineers have a hard time giving up on a design philosophy they pour their heart and soul into, but above all else Preziosi wanted to win.
a bit harse
There was a season when Ducati made everyone look a bit silly. Now even Audi are a bit slow to make improvements.
Let the man be. If he shows up someplace in 6 mos great. If not, he has surely made his mark in life. Not a perfect run but definitely one to be proud of.
Book deal?
Seems like FP has been itching to tell his side of the Rossi Fiasco.
Plausible?
Plausible, I guess but always has been subject to same health condition. Whatever it was expected. This is what corporations do when they want rid of someone but don't want the public perception of failure- marginalize, minimize then leave.
carrying the can
It is clear he has been singled out as to blame whatever press releases have claimed but I think, at least to some extent unfairly. Many have been critical of 'his' refusal to change v angle of the engine, 'his' inability to produce new parts or ideas, 'his' inability to come up with somehting new, 'his' desire to stick with c/f monocoque, 'his' intransigence in design etc... It seems much more likely that it was Ducati the company that was unwilling/unable to afford the sheer amount of new stuff the Japanese seem to bring out. Ducati that wanted to persevere with monocoques given they have based their newest road bike range on the concept. Ducati who want to keep the 'historic' engine configuration- and still do! And he was willing to have scorn poured on him by publically acknowledging asking former Yamaha engineer Furusawa for help- NOT intransigence. So why it his fault I could never work out. And let's suppose all the complaints were correct and it was all his doing, and his alone. By my reckoning that is STILL Ducati or Corse's fault for putting a single man in that position.
i wouldn't label one WC and
numerous GP wins a total disaster. it's better than what Kawasaki and Suzuki have to show for their efforts. granted, it was only with stoner that he achieved his success, so...
about his inflexibility with changing the V angle- now that it has come to light that Honda has also been running a 90 degree v4, his insistence seems to have been somewhat vindicated. at least we all know a 90 degree V4 can be made to work- and even dominate the last part of the season.
Good point. Compare to HRC success post Hayden...
A good point.
A WC and all those wins is nothing to be sneezed at ..... and in 2006, Caparossi was 34 points ahead going into the ill fated Catalyuna round. The bike must have been good for Bayliss to jump on and blow the field away at Valencia that year.
By comparison, after Hayden's WC for HRC in 2006, Honda only have 1x WC and if you further take out Stoner's HRC wins, it is looking pretty bad for the HRC design team also.
So much for control tyres hey!
We'll never know
It's impossible to judge what Preziosi achieved without knowing what his constraints were: not just in terms of budget, but what was allowed by marketing, by management, by entrenched politics. We can say that Ducati did better then Suzuki, Kawasaki and Aprilia (and the cameo appearance by KTM), plus various players from F1 who thought it would be easy to kick arse among the two-wheelers.
I imagine the pressures of the last 7 years would be tough on anyone's health. Hopefully he will be able to recover.