MotoGP Silverstone – Team Bosses

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk Hello and welcome to Motorpod, the internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is going to be episode number 787. This is Rich coming to you with the rather delayed but the first of the interview specials from August's MotoGP Silverstone round.

Now in this first installment we've got two of the legendary MotoGP padded team bosses. First up we've got a chat with Davide Brivio, team manager of the Trackhouse Aprilia racing team. What can you say about Davide Brivio? So engaging to talk to, so knowledgeable, so much history in the sport. We get to talk a little bit about that history.

We talk about why it was he accepted the job at Trackhouse racing. What he sees in terms of the future development of Raul Fernandez who's going to be staying on at the team as we know. And although the appointment of Iguira wasn't mentioned at the time of the recording of this interview, we do touch on what the team are looking for in that second rider slot. What's so wonderful about Davide is that you ask him a question and you get a wonderfully insightful and 100% honest answer. You really can just see and feel the love this man has for MotoGP, so it's been great to talk to him.

And a huge thanks to Maria, the Trackhouse press officer, for helping to facilitate us getting some time with Davide in what was of course a very busy weekend at Silverstone. Following on from there we get to talk with Herve Pontrar, CasCasKTM Tech 3 team boss. Again, Herve, like Davide, is one of those people that you wish you could get stuck in the lift with because really you want to be able to just talk for hours with these people. Naturally, we get to talk about Pedro Acosta, the impact that he's had in the first season with Tech 3 and what it means to Herve that Pedro gets to move on up to the Works squad next year and beyond. We also talk about 2025 in terms of Marik Vignadas and Anaya Bastianini joining the squad, as well as the potential or perhaps the wish-fulfilment idea that I have about Davide Alonso coming into MotoGP in a couple of years and possibly landing at somewhere like Tech 3.

Obviously there's a few other bits and pieces in the discussion as well, but I won't preempt too much of it, so really it just remains for me to say thank you to Maria at Trackhouse and to Matilde at Tech 3 for helping us to get these interviews. Again, I hope you like this kind of content that we're bringing you now. Obviously it's our aim to do as much of this as we possibly can going forward, so please let us know what your feedback is. If you haven't subscribed to the show already, please do so. And yeah, let's get on with it.

Over to Davide. Alright, Friday at Silverstone and I have the enormous pleasure to be talking with, let's say, legendary MotoGP team principal Davide Brivio, now at Trackhouse Racing. Davide, it's a huge pleasure to welcome you onto MotoPod. We were just talking, maybe you've been on in the very, very past, but not certainly in the last 10 years, I'm sure, so welcome. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. It's a great pleasure to talk to you. We only have a short amount of time, so I'm going to try and go reasonable quick. So you seem to be a man with a very special talent that you can take a team which is either struggling or new and you can step by step take it towards the front. What's the magic formula?

No, okay. I mean, it doesn't automatically work every time. It's just been, yeah, I would say I would consider myself lucky in my, let's say, professional experience. And yeah, I've been a few times in a situation to start the team or kind of restructure something. And I don't know, there's nothing just working.

Just what you work. No, I mean, at the end of the day, it's the merit of the people that work with you because, of course, there's not one person that can make the difference. That's why it's called a team. A team is a group of people trying to go for the same target and try to put effort and do things with passion and commitment and try to reach a certain target. So let's say I've been lucky to find good people or to convince good people to come to the team.

It's not the magic. But I think the important thing is to try to create the chemistry where everybody really work together. And, you know, in the work and in the life, when you put two people together, you can start to have the problems. So that's always the challenge to have the right atmosphere, the right environment or a good environment, good atmosphere and good cooperation between the others. But as I say, the important is the people that you have around if they embrace this concept, this phase.

Looking at your history going back, I mean, many people will know, but many won't know that you started off with Yamaha and World Superbikes in the 1990s. I guess that was maybe part of the reason why you came to MotoGP when it went four stroke Formula in 2002. Actually, I started even earlier because my very first team has been Team Pirovano with Fabrizio Pirovano, which was in a World Superbike. And then because Pirovano was racing with Yamaha bikes, supported by the time was called Begarda, which is like Yamaha Italy, then I ended up working for Yamaha Italy, which had a World Superbike team, then become factory World Superbike team. And then the Team MotoGP moved there in Italian facility.

Then I would be involved in a long history with Yamaha. What's your most vivid memory of the early part of that 990 era? I mean, do you look back on that? Do you think about that particularly nowadays? Is it relevant to what you're doing now?

Yeah, when I started there was riders like Falappo, Roche, of course, Pirovano, Fred Merkel. That was the rider I started with. But also, of course, this type of job is evolved because the team are evolved. So sometimes I recall my very first trip overseas. It was in Brainerd, Minnesota in USA.

And it was a World Superbike race. So it was a World Superbike round. And we travel the whole team. We were four people, including rider. Four.

So myself, two mechanics and the rider. And we went to race a World Superbike race event in Minnesota. There were no pit garages. There was one big workshop. Then when you needed to do the practice, you have to put all the toolbox on a rental car and reach the pit wall.

And then do practice and take back everything. So, I mean, it's just a small example. Sometimes I recall how much this sport has evolved and how much the organization as a consequence has evolved with so many people in Minnesota. You, of course, were fundamental in bringing Valentino Rossi to Yamaha. Then you had a very successful period with Suzuki.

Now you're at Trackhouse Racing. You talked about how you like a challenge, but what was the particular attraction of coming here to do this job now? Yeah, I had after Suzuki, I had the opportunity to go Formula One, which was a great experience. As I say, sometimes it didn't work as I wanted or as everybody expected, but it was very nice to make this experience. So then I wanted to kind of finish that experience.

And for me, it's kind of a natural desire to be back in the MotoGP somehow. And then I was waiting for an opportunity and Trackhouse called me and I like the new team. I talked to Justin Marks. I like the idea of being an American team. I mean, there was something appealing me.

And then I said, yeah, it's a good opportunity to be back and happy to be back. My co-host in America, Jim McDowell, he was interested to have your comparison, your experience of the Formula One paddock compared to the MotoGP paddock. I mean, obviously they're different championships, different scale even. But what's the kind of the main takeaway from your short time there? Yeah, they are different, very different paddock.

Of course, Formula One is much more exclusive, if you like, much more difficult to get in. MotoGP is more open in terms of public. In terms of, let's say, working environment, it's also very much different because Formula One, they are much bigger organization, many more people. Of course, more resources. So everything is bigger, bigger hospitality, bigger amount of staff.

But also because, let me say, it's for sure more complicated to manage a Formula One car than a MotoGP bike. And in consequence of that, you have many more engineers. Also, the races are different. Having the pit stop in Formula One, it creates a lot of not problem, but a lot of things to be done. First of all, you have to think about the strategy.

Second, you have to be quick on a pit stop. You have to train mechanics. You have to build the right equipments. And so there's many things that comes along with that. And we don't have that.

So at a certain point it's more simple. And also Formula One is like everybody build their own car. So you have 10 different cars into the championship. Here we have five manufacturers. They build car and then they lease the bike.

So there are some difference, which also as a consequence, create different type of organization. So in MotoGP is more smaller. Formula One is bigger organization. I would say probably MotoGP is more like passion and sport oriented. Formula One sometimes is very much business and political oriented.

But for me, I mean, to me, this is fashionated anyway. So I like a lot MotoGP. I feel very comfortable here in MotoGP. I know everybody. But also I like the Formula One.

I am attracted by their technology, the complexity of their organization and stuff like that. I guess the experience in Formula One, at least if nothing else, teaches you some things that you don't want to do here or things that shouldn't be done in certain ways. The Formula One experience has been very inspirational for me. There are things that you can bring. They are bigger organization.

They had more problems. So maybe sometime you can find some solution or some ideas on how to improve this organization. It's not comparable. I mean, you cannot do the same, but you can take some ideas on how to maybe improve the organization, which I'm trying to. I'm trying to implement some ideas here in MotoGP.

Interesting. I won't ask a question about that. Let's look forward then. So Raul Fernandes is now signed for 2025 and 2026. It's a big signing for the team and it shows a lot of faith and expectation and track out and obviously from a brilliant.

Now we know that Raul has an enormous natural talent and he has given some good performances this year. Say Barcelona, he was very strong. What do you see in him and what areas of him as a rider do you feel that you can help him to improve in terms of performance? We see a rider with a lot of talent, a rider with potential. And the thing is that arriving in a MotoGP, it's a very competitive environment.

It's very difficult. If you think in MotoGP, all the riders are race winners. Most of them are world champions. And so everything is extremely difficult here. So then if you have talent and you have the potential, you have to put a lot of work to achieve a good result.

We are aware that we have a lot of work to do in terms of trying to find the best way to work, to create a working method, processes and of course getting comfortable on a bike, find a good setting, find good performance and stuff like that. But we see that with Raul probably we can go through this journey. And this is the challenge to try to go on that route and see where we end up with him. Just my opinion looking from the outside, but it seems a character like Raul, possibly as he gets a little older each year and a little bit more mature, maybe he calms down a little bit and this becomes evident in his performance. Yeah, nobody probably ever thought too much or ever considered, but his pathway from the low category to the MotoGP has been very quick.

Too quick probably. He was one year in Moto2? Yeah, he won 7 races and then brought MotoGP which is something probably was too early. Anyway, he arrived very quick and probably he didn't have time to get used to it. So that's what we have to maybe go a little bit back somehow and restart this journey.

But we see the potential to do that. He has been very successful in the early age and he was expecting maybe that is the trend, coming MotoGP and winning. But that's not how it works in MotoGP. This is what he understands and this is the journey that we have to take to get him to the top. Now I know I can't ask you and I won't ask you anything about the other bike to be fair because you won't answer.

But I'm just interested in your opinion for the second bike. Is it your preference to have somebody with experience on that bike or do you look at Moto2 and lots of potential candidates there? And is it more inspiring in a way or more the team's function to bring a young rider to create that pathway? What's better at the moment for trackhouse? Yeah, it's a good question and it's a kind of a dilemma when you have to decide to choose a rider.

And I mean, I would say both projects would be valid. And in some sense, we as an independent team, we should look at the best performance at the time. Not too much to young riders, growing up young riders, whatever. But then I think at the end of the day, we probably end up to be fascinated by a young rider project. And so we now looking at that.

So maybe having Raoul with three years experience, we think now he has his chance to show his potential and his performance in the coming two years. So in the meantime, we would like to try to restart the game with another young rider. And in the meantime, this will allow us, it's not only the rider, but also the team that has to grow up and have his own stability. So having a young rider, we can work on both sides, create our, say, grow up a rider and create a stable team. It must be a great satisfaction for you as an Italian to be working with an Italian manufacturer now.

With regard to the Aprilia, what do you feel is the relative performance now? I think probably you could say it's the second best bike here, but are there one or two areas in the bike that you think is needed just to go that step further again? Yeah, I mean, it sounds funny, but it's the first time I work for an Italian company with an Italian company. I always work with Japanese. Yeah, no, I think we're very lucky to be in this position with Aprilia because first of all, we have their full support.

We will run a full factory machine, so the same machine that the factory team has. And at the moment, I consider the Aprilia the best challenger of Ducati. Of course, Ducati is the strongest bike at the moment. They are winning, they're successful. And I think, of course, Aprilia and KTM, we are challenging them.

But I think Aprilia, we are the closest to Ducati. So we have to continue to push and work on that and try to chase them. It's always a long process because the difficulty is to we can have a good performance. Maverick has won a race and whatever, but then you have to gain consistency. So to be constantly at the top.

And this is what also it took a long time for Ducati to do, if you think. Because they were getting podium winning, but before to have such a strong dominance, it took many years. So this is the journey we are doing with Aprilia and try to establish ourselves as a constant contender. And so I know I have to wrap this up. Do you see Trikennes' role?

I mean, obviously, it's an independent team, so it has to look after itself. But is there also an element which is being a pathfinding team for the work squad in terms of the new talent coming through so that they can come here first? Is that an expectation or limitation? We're working very close to Aprilia. We cooperating, we're discussing many things together.

In some sense, it's not our role, our job to grow up the rider, which maybe might be contradiction with what I say just a few minutes before. But as I say, we are kind of fascinated by this idea to go up a rider. And of course, the idea is not to grow up a rider, then to prepare it for a brilliant factory team, but it's to grow up a rider that hopefully can bring a truckhouse at the top. So that's the challenge. Of course, it's not an easy thing, but this is our target.

OK, I'm going to ask my last question. It's a funny one that I like to do for people like you, people that have been in the sport for a long time. I know you rode some motocross, I think, when you were a boy. Very unsuccessful, but yes. Yeah, OK, so and I appreciate you haven't been a racer in the asphalt.

But I like to ask people, if you look back into history at tracks and at motorcycles, racing motorcycles, if you could either you would ride it or you get your favorite rider. What track and what bike from history, which combination would you love to see? A track. Track and a bike. Wow.

I asked this question to Lucho in Qatar last year and he came up with the NSR 500 at Rugello, which is a good choice. OK, I remember what he told me as well. I don't know. I think I mean about track, I think I mean, if I think my early age or watching television, I don't know why the track comes in my mind. So, Zuka.

Wow. And in terms of bike, I don't know. You're a two stroke guy at heart or you love the four stroke, the prototype? No, I'm more I only get involved in MotoGP 500 with the last year in two stroke and then started the first year in four stroke. But I would say Suzuki and I remember Yamaha and Suzuki because that was OK.

I was working for Norioka Haga. He was a wild card in Suzuki. And I think he finished third. He got into the podium as a wild card in two stroke while he was a super bike rider. So I don't know.

I have let's say Yamaha and Suzuki. Nice. Good choice. Good choice. Well, I can talk to you for one or two hours.

But Maria won't. OK. So thank you for your time. It's been a great pleasure. Thanks to you.

My pleasure. Thank you. Cheers. Well, I'm sitting here with Herve Pontchereau, legendary team boss of Gas Gas Factory Racing Tech 3. Herve, it's great to have a chance to talk to you again.

Obviously, we spoke at length in Qatar last year, but a lot of exciting things have happened since that time, even though it's just a relatively short time. So let's start off inevitably with Pedro Acosta. When we spoke in Qatar, I think you mentioned the privilege that you felt to have Pedro coming to this team to start his MotoGP journey, let's say. Even with all of your experience, have even you been a bit shocked about and maybe a little bit of cynicism as well based on experience? I mean, how do you kind of look at this kid and what he's achieved so far?

Even you're surprised? Yeah, when I told you the end of 2023, I told you I was very proud and honored to welcome and to have Pedro Acosta with us for the 2024 season. I told you how I was feeling he was talented and going to be a great MotoGP rider. But honestly, if I want to be completely honest with you, I by far never expected to see him doing what he did through the winter testing and especially, you know, the first part of his MotoGP rookie season. I think nobody was thinking that that could be happening.

Each teammate is other MotoGP friends and all I can say is, yeah, I've been surprised by how he's been mastering the riding of a MotoGP. Everything which is taking a lot of time for a rookie and always we say, you're one for a rookie, forget about results. This is a learning process. There are so many things to understand, you know, to buy carbon brake, new tires, so much electronic, so many technical stuff to deal with that you say, OK, wait for year two. And he proved everybody wrong because from the first race he was fighting for the podium in Qatar, he even, you know, passed Marc Marquez.

We had a few technical issues there, but we could see that he was on course for an incredible season. Since then he's been impressing everyone. And I think the second race he was already on the podium in Portugal and the third race in USA was again on the podium and eventually almost fighting for victory. So this is amazing. And the first part of the year was like a dream come true.

You've worked with a lot of riders. With Pedro, it seems to be that he has lots of things on the bike and off the bike, actually crucially, I would say off the bike. He seems like a guy that really understands his value. A good example for that, you know, we've got four riders already for PR mobility this year. We have Jack Miller, Brad Binder, Augusto Fernandez and Pedro Alcosta.

Pedro Alcosta is the only rookie. Straight after the last race of the first part of the year, which was Saxon in Germany, he decided to fly to Austria to spend the whole week to meet every single person involved in the MotoGP project. That never happened, especially on his own decision, on his own wish. And today, you know, back from the summer break, I was talking to each single person he met there and they were all honestly amazed and surprised by how he handled the meeting, by the question he was asking, by the way he was explaining his feedback, what he was feeling good, what he was feeling that could be improved, what was the weak point of he thinks our package to the others. And they were really impressed by the level of his maturity.

And I think for him, pressure is a positive pressure. He loves to work with pressure. And this is a plus. This is pushing him and he likes to play with pressure. Technically, he's unbelievable because when he does his debrief, you know, run after run when he starts to talk to his engineer, it's incredible.

All the small details he's telling everyone. So you can see that on the bike he's like a sponge. We call him the sponge because everything happening, he records it, he keeps it in his memory and when we stop, boom. Download it. Download, yeah.

And no, he is very, very mature and he doesn't behave like a rookie on track, but also even maybe more impressive off track. Yeah. May I ask you, I think I know what you're going to answer this, but it kind of feels like it might be a frustration in a way that Pedro leaves you next year for the Works team. Or is it a satisfaction to you that you've been part of this crucial first step in his MotoGP career? Honestly, a bit of both because I am very happy to be part of the PR Mobility MotoGP project.

I know how hard they work. I know how much passion is in this project. I know how much, you know, it is important for Chef and Pierre, who birthed MotoGP, the two, you know, bosses of the PR Mobility company. And I told them after a few races, but I think they didn't need me to tell them, but still, I told them, hey, this guy took over, Pedro, you need to keep him. But midterm, longterm.

Yeah. And it was so important. Of course, I would have loved to have him here too, because you're going to be stronger than your one. Even though he's doing an incredible rookie season, still, he does a few mistakes, he's learning and for sure next year he's going to be stronger. So you always want to harvest the fruit of your investments and I would have loved because we have a great relationship together.

But on the other hand, I'm happy that he stays in the group. I think he's now clearly the leader and together with Brad, they are going to be a super strong team. So we still have a few races before the end of the 24th. More races to go than we've already had. Exactly.

So we still have a lot of time to enjoy, to see what I told all my guys. But we need to enjoy and we shouldn't be sad. At least we need a year with him and of course our dream, as you can imagine, is to win one. Yeah. Hopefully.

But again, also seeing the 2025 lineup, it makes me still positive and not too sad. Well, you're predicting my next question. So for 2025, Augusto obviously departs, which must be a little bit of a sad and frustrating situation, I guess, in some ways for you. But on the other hand, the team has the big challenge of welcoming Anel Bastianini and Maverick Vinales. I mean, I was quite surprised when that announcement was made.

Not so much for Anel, but certainly the Maverick news was quite a big surprise to most people, I guess. I mean, I'm curious for your take on the next couple of seasons because you're going to be working with very experienced people as opposed to rookies. And it's obviously going to be very different. So I know you can't predict what's going to happen. No.

But I guess you have high hopes. Yes. You know, in Mugello, everything moves very quickly. Once, Cati decided to have Matt Packers in their factory team. The market was really unhappy.

So quickly moved to Apria. We could see some riders starting to feel there won't be any more good opportunities. So everything started to move and almost within 10 days, everything was not everything. But a lot of top riders were clear and decided. Anel Bastianini, that was quite a while, you know, he was having the feeling that he was not going to be renewed.

And he entered in talk with us for a few weeks already. And we knew. And for me, I was pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing because for me, Anel is an unbelievable rider. When the planet aligned, he's almost unbeatable. I remember 22.

OK, last year was a dreadful season for him after the injury. But when everything works, remember Sepang last year where he was flying. So I'm really proud to have him. Everything was working so well with Gresini. Things didn't work that way in the factory team.

Our mission, and I'm not saying we are going to be successful and to fulfill the mission, but our mission is to give him the feeling he was having with Gresini. And maybe our team to be a bit more family atmosphere, a bit less, of course, not less factory, because we are not factory team. We are factory supported team. But Nando Ducati, maybe he's going to help him. He's going to reunite with his crew chief that he was with Gresini, you know, three years ago, which is Pigi Amino, as they call him.

And he's very happy with that. This was a big part of also his decision to move to us to reunite with his loved crew chief. So I think it's going to be interesting. Definitely. I hope it's going to gel and we are going to work well together and push each other with the factory team.

But as you said, for quite a few weeks we were already talking with him. Maverick, we could see there was some interest because he was sometimes coming. I could see his manager. I met him in some hotels in the paddock. We had some coffee together at the Red Bull Hospitalities.

But I was always thinking, you know, he's playing with us to try to get some kind of interest and to pass it to Aprile. At that time, I didn't believe he was really meaning that he was going to come. And then suddenly he said, no, no, I want to come. And for me, it was a bit of a surprise because I thought, especially once Aleixis Pagaroulet, I thought he was going to be the new captain because he had experience from the outside. They look to be very happy with each other, factory and team.

But you know, sometimes you have things that you and I didn't really want to ask him. All he said, I want to be with you. I believe in you. And this is my priority. And then he said, it's your priority.

Are you ready? I said, I'm ready. Bang! So within less than a week, we saw Enear and Maverick. And again, as you mentioned, because a lot of people, a lot of the media are saying and I read it that he knew he had no possibility to stay at Arpelia.

Now they are saying that, but it was not true. It was not true. They wanted to keep him big time. I'm telling you. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

But so it was his decision. Is it the right or the wrong decision? I don't want to say anything. We will see. But deep inside himself, that was his number one priority to come to work with the technical team.

I have a kind of a sneaky little theory. I could always call it a wish that in 25 and 26, David Alonso is going to be the captain. David Alonso is going to be in Moto2 probably winning the championship there given his level of talent. And in my dream scenario, he comes to KTM Tech 3 for the new regulations in 2027. You cannot believe how happy I am to hear this because we talked about Pedro Alcosta.

But for me, Pedro Alcosta is the first real incredible rookie we've seen joining MotoGP since, I don't know, maybe Marquez at that level. But OK, we see sometimes you see once a decade. But what is David Alonso doing at the moment is also something that you say speechless. You can't explain when you see the gap because everybody got the same bike, the same tires, the same everything. So in Moto3 it's really the rider, even between the two main manufacturers of your mobility and Honda.

But this guy is amazing. Sometimes when you see the gap, he's having how he's mastering the last lap, how he can be sometimes stuck P10 and within a lap and a half leading the race. For me, he's an unbelievable, amazing talent and he should be coming very soon on a MotoGP bike, hopefully with the P10 mobility group. Yeah, well that would be a dream. But I think you and I, we are not the only ones to have that.

No, I'm sure. After Pedro, the next jewel in the bucket was Aldeguerre. And there was a fight. Every single factory made him an offer last year. Ducati won the game, let's say.

The new one is going to be Alonso. So I'm pretty sure that there will be almost. I had the good fortune to talk with David earlier today. And again, like Pedro, he's very kind of grounded. Yes.

I mean, I'm sure Martin is keeping him very much under control. And also, you know, he's been, I mean, suffering. You know, he comes from a very modest background and he knows where he went through and he knows that he needs to keep his feet on the ground. OK, at the moment he's leading the championship, but he hasn't won the championship yet. And I like the low profile attitude he's having at the moment.

But having a low profile attitude doesn't mean you don't have unbelievable ambition. And he's so ambitious. Oh, yeah. And he's right. Yeah, yeah.

And he says very clearly he wants to win the Moto3, the Moto2, and then go to MotoGP before. He wants to do a Pedro Acosta replica. Yeah, yeah. Quick question from one of the previous show hosts for MotoPod, Martin Darlington. Martin was interested to get your thoughts on the Yamaha and Pramak collaboration and whether you think Yamaha would have learned from the loss of Tech3, which we talked about in Qatar last year, you might remember, maybe ensuring that Pramak are treated more like partners than customers this time.

You know, I think first I'm very happy for Yamaha to have secured a strong satellite operation. On the other hand, I'm really happy for Pramak and the power company to have secured such a strong partner also. And this is good for the championship. This is good for Yamaha. This is good for the show, etc, etc, etc.

And even though we stopped working together, I still have and I always have a special feeling for Yamaha. Always. I left them at a time where they didn't think a satellite operation was a plus. They were thinking more it was a weight on their shoulders. Cost money, cost trouble.

We should concentrate on two riders. But this is also following everything that has been pushed by the teams, by Dornan, by, you know, all the tech, all the suppliers that say, hey, you should have four bikes. And the factory riders, you know, how many times Fabio has been saying, hey, we have four bikes. You get twice more data and feedback and comments. So now every single manufacturer understands the needs, but needs in block letter.

It's almost vital to have minimum four bikes on the grid. And so many factories have been complaining that they were too many to cut these and they were having an advantage, but they were too many to cut these because they didn't want a satellite operation. I'm sorry to say that. Yeah, yeah. So I am really happy for them.

I'm really happy for Pramak. I think it's going to boost the competitivity of Yamaha plus the concession they're having. I know a few names that could be on board the Pramak Yamaha. I think these names could be helping them quite well. And no, I'm happy.

You know, we've pushed. We passed a lot of messages to Yamaha. And my friend, Carlo Torpinotti, is going to have us to get the fruits of our push. So happy for him. Good.

And last question. Hey, but you know now you don't have any more satellite operation. The company that is running the team is private, but I am as factory and this is why next year we're going to be Red Bull Gate. I am as factory technically than the factory team. Same applies to SCR Honda.

Same applies to Pramak so far and Ducati. And same will apply with Pramak Yamaha and Factory Yamaha. So I'm really happy. And it's part of the reason why we see such a competitive group. Exactly.

That's what we've been pushing. But sometimes you need to preach in the desert for quite a while before you reach a place where the water starts to fall down and the plants start to grow. Exactly. OK, so final question because I know you don't have lots and lots of time for me today. The new rules for 2027 are obviously are official now.

I'm curious to know what you're most looking forward to when this new era dawns in 2027. And if there was one part of the new rules that you could take straight away and implement it now, which one would you choose? I'm going to shock you because I'm a big fan of the current balance. I completely understand why we are going to the 2027 rules because if we don't stop every year we think it's faster, more powerful, etc. So we need to reduce this.

But today, I think until MF26, we are seeing for me the best bike that MotoGP will maybe ever produce. I understand some riders don't like, but for me all the devices, the workshop device, the ride hate device, the aero, this is a proper prototype. And I remember when we were racing with the old two stroke, it was almost like a bike that you could get from the shop. So these bikes are amazing. This is the ultimate technology.

The power, the speed, the technology is insane and unbelievable. And when you love racing, you always want to have the top of the top. But we have to have the safety of the riders on top of everything. And all the riders, not some, all the riders said we need to slow down everything. A lot of riders think the devices are covering the difference of skills, of riding ability.

We will see. I'm sad to see them going away because for me they are very interesting. All these things that started in racing, the traction control, the ABS, all these things that are now going to production, all the wings on the aero, for sure this has helped and we learnt a lot of things. I understand now it's too much. It's almost impossible for a human being, even though a MotoGP rider, it's not a normal human being, to cope with.

But I don't believe in end of 2017, the lap time is going to be a lot slower than end of 2016. Because the corner speed is going to be better. Already now we have too much power so we are more time cutting the power than having everything full. So I support, I've been part of the talk and everything which is decided, I think this is going to the right and the only direction we should aim for. And it was unanimous between the manufacturer, Alfaian, Dona and Yersta.

So this is good. But I'm a bit nostalgic. It's like WRC, when we lost Group B, I was a bit sad because for me it was an animal, a machine, a beast. And the same thing with the old Formula One when they were having 1200hp qualifying with Nigel Mansell, I remember. Also when we were using qualifying tyres, when you were talking about the riders, the feeling of it's impossible to understand grip for one lap.

But I'm supporting. But when you love technology, when you love prototype and engineer having their brain working through power, I will be a bit nostalgic. But we need to move on. Like you say, the brains will be going just as fast in 2027 to make the new bikes fast again. No, no, no, but they will find solutions and ideas to go even faster, for sure.

So you wouldn't necessarily take one of the new regulations or take away one of the current things that we have because you like what we have currently? No, I like what we have because this is the ultimate development of a motorcycle in road racing. Within the rules that we have. Yes, with more freedom. But now it's almost, as I said to you, we went too far physically.

But technology speaking, for sure, the new one is going to be less interesting because it's going to be simpler. Interesting. Very interesting. I like it, I like it. But you know, some people told me we should get rid of the wheels.

I said yeah, damn. Even super bikes have wheels. If you get wheels off a MotoGP bike which is a full prototype, it means nothing. We don't want to have the bike that the guy can go and buy in the shop racing on Sunday because you need to make people dream. It's not a prototype anymore.

Exactly. And even the bike you buy in the shop has wings now. Yes, yeah. Well, it's a great pleasure to talk to you as always. It's a short one this time compared to last time.

No problem, no problem. Great pleasure and thank you for your time and have a great weekend. Hope so. What's the weather like this weekend? Sunny, warm, not super hot.

It's cooling down a little bit. I think 21, 22 degrees, I think, for Sunday. That's what we love. That's going to be the sweet spot for the MotoGP bike. Perfect.

Thank you for the visit. Thank you.