Among the key men in Valentino Rossi's career, we find Carlo Pernat. However, the 70-year-old Italian spoke on the microphone of “ Libero Quotidiano » among others on the complicated first part of the “Dottore” season ».
The Yamaha rider is going through a difficult time, linked, according to the Genoese manager, to his team.
Carlo Pernat: “I started it, they told me I did it because his father Graziano recommended it… What idiots….
For me, the problem of his crisis is in his team, not because he is now 40 years old, nor in the Yamaha bike. He must have the courage to change men, to choose a new chief technician.”
A true pillar of the paddock for more than four decades, Charles Pernat always says what he thinks and fully owns what he says: “My extroverted character and my total lack of hypocrisy are my strength”. We will return to this aspect of the transalpine personality, but the opinion he professes, we have already heard it recently in the paddock, following among other things the modest performance of the Doctor at the Sachsenring, while Maverick Viñales and Fabio Quartararo shone much more, session after session.
The target would be, of course, not the experienced mechanics who have been working on bike #46 for ages, but, on the one hand Silvano Galbusera who never contradicts his rider, and even more the direct entourage of Valentino Rossi, his real guard close, made up of 3 friends who, little by little, took charge of the strategy of the nine-time world champion.
This is how, for example, the Italian star often does only one lap during qualifying, even if it means being trapped at the last moment, as was the case at Jerez and Mugello, while, for example, Fabio Quartararo continues laps until his rear tire is completely exhausted.
In team management, we are especially quick to say something that could upset the driver (“we need to work better together”), and he re-tuned his total confidence in its technical team: « Since I've been with Galbusera, I certainly haven't won as many races as when I was young. But I've earned enough. We fought together for a title until the last race and we finished vice-world champion twice after that. So the goal is to continue like this ».
Carlo Pernat, who knows everyone involved very well, simply says what he thinks, and recommends drastic measures, like those he had to take when he was Sports Director at Aprilia: “In 1992, when we won the first World Championship in Aprilia with Gramigni, we took a big risk. Alex was injured against a car before Mugello. To gain these 3 points which were then decisive, we chose to operate on him with Dr Costa 5 days before the GP: Every time he had to get on or off the bike, the mechanics carried him in their arms. It was my first world title: Like your first love, you never forget it.”
He continues with another opinion on Valentino Rossi: « They’ll have to take him out by his feet, he’s fucking scared to leave.”
There, you really have to know the Doctor intimately to be able to say that, and that is obviously not our case. We will therefore simply try to take advantage of this summer break to explain the truculent Italian manager further.
In the meantime, a look back at Carlo Pernat's journey in video: