The Monday after the Grand Prix in Valencia, Davide Brivio, the team manager of the Ecstar Suzuki team, gave a very long press conference to take stock of the 2016 season and shed light on his expectations for 2017.
As usual, we therefore offer you a full “raw” translation of his words, without any formatting or journalistic distortion.
What kind of bike are you going to use tomorrow and how do you envisage next season?
“We don't have a new bike for 2017, but we will continue to develop this project. This will be an evolution and we are working on improving the engine. Our situation is less serious than last year because last year we had a big gap to make up, but now our engine performance is quite good, it is at the level of other Japanese motorcycles. But of course everyone is working to improve their performance and we have to do the same to keep the pace. So we are working for that.
Tomorrow we are going to use a semi-engine evolutions, and you will understand because we have the direct starter of the engine and that is the first step. This is not the version we will use at Sepang or Phillip Island during testing, but we are starting to do some testing.
For the rest and for the moment, there is nothing new. We are trying to prepare some chassis parts for Sepang and Phillip Island, but we consider that the project is now quite well balanced in terms of chassis. So we will try to improve the engine power to get more performance. In the chassis area, we will present some parts at Sepang and Phillip Island, but we will be very careful and we will only use them if we see advantages or benefits brought by these new parts. »
About the next season, yes, it will be more difficult because, seen from the outside, there were not many expectations regarding the Suzukis, and now there are probably more expectations for 2017. But it's a nice problem and that's why we are here, to do our job which will be more and more difficult. The higher your goal is, the harder the work is, but now we have to play the game and I think with Iannone we can try to do it from the start, if we can do a good job with the bike in the garage. »
What do you need to be more consistent?
“It's a fairly new team and we probably need to have more experience in the electronics area, and that's what we need to work on more, especially for the races in the rain. And we probably need to analyze race endings more deeply, like yesterday's. Not just us, but everyone experiences tire wear at the end of a race, and if we are able to improve this area we can try to take advantage of it. If our tire wears out a few laps later, that can be an advantage. I would say that we need to find how to fine-tune this situation: better electronic settings and better durability of the tire at the end of the race.
Tomorrow we start a new chapter, so we will have to see what Andrea needs, what he asks of us. He has a lot of experience, he is in his 5th year in MotoGP, so he knows what he needs to be strong, we think he knows what he needs to win races so we will listen to his requests. »
Isn't it strange that you parted ways with your two drivers and why did you choose Rins over Zarco?
“I've already had this question twice (laughs). Our originality was to maintain stability in our project and we of course took Maverick in Moto2. The project, the idea, at Suzuki, was to continue this project with Maverick. He made his own decision to move to another team. What I understand. At this time, everyone knows that the transfer market started very early, and he had to make a decision in April/May. Maybe it would have been a harder decision if he had to make it now. At that time, there was already a competitive motorcycle…. The problem is that the transfer market started very early, in March/April, and the riders who had to choose their bike, as well as the teams who had to choose their rider, did so mainly based on the 2015 season. We were only at the 3rd or 4th race of the season, and the start of the season had also been a bit tricky: the night race in Qatar, Austin and its special track, Argentina... You couldn't judge from that ! If the transfer market had started in July/August, we would all have had, drivers and teams, a lot more elements to judge the situation. Having said that, at that time there was a bike that was already competitive, and in fact had dominated the 2015 season, and on our side we had a bike that was improving and developing. So our bike could have been competitive while this bike was already competitive. So, hopefully, he had to decide between something sure and something that could be. That's why I say I understand the choice.
When Maverick decided to leave, we then thought about what the plan could be, and we decided to do a sort of reboot of the project. We couldn't maintain the stability we wanted, so there was the opportunity to take Iannone, which we decided to do. The negotiation was very, very quick, we settled everything in two or three days. We didn't want to lose the possibility of taking Andrea because we thought, and we believe, that we can continue this work with Andrea, that we can take this bike to the highest level, that we can make podiums and win races. So we took the opportunity that presented itself, and for the other driver, we liked the idea of taking Rins, who we think is a good talent, he's very young, and working again to a new challenge; make a driver progress. Maybe we wanted to be more creative with our choice (laughs). We love this idea and this project, and we also thought that having worked on a similar project, with Maverick coming from Moto2 as a Rookie, we could try to use this experience for another upcoming talent. We like this kind of challenge and we will try. I think the team is well balanced because we have a “ready to go” driver and another driver who can potentially be at the top in the next few years. »
