Certainly, Paolo ciabatti is no longer the sporting director of Ducati Corse in MotoGP for the 2024 season. But make no mistake: the man always has his say, and this interview carried out in Italy last year is still relevant to paint us the portrait of a beautiful person in the paddock , today responsible for Superbike, Motocross, MotoAmerica, Endurance, BSB, etc…
Paolo ciabatti : “I was born on October 20, 1957 in Turin. I lived until the age of 7 in Turin, then my father bought a big house in the countryside, that means 15 km from Turin, on the hill, and we moved there, like I did the first part of city schools in Turin, and after the second part of primary school in a small village. And then I returned to study in Turin because there was no higher school there and I did all my studies in Turin in, how should I say, a private school of the brothers of Jean-Baptiste de la Salle , which is called the College of Saint-Joseph.
After that, I started at the Polytechnico in Turin, where I did the first two years, but then, unfortunately, my father died when I was 19, and I stopped studying at the Polytechnico to go in the United States, in Boston. But after a few months, as I was the only man in the family, which included my mother, my little sister and my big sister who is a year older than me, then my mother told me “You have to go back to Italy because I need you”. And so I came back and continued Economics and Management. Then I started working for a company in Turin which was the importer of Saab and Mazda cars. I had a passion for everything that was motor-driven, like all children my age. At 14, the dream was to have a motorcycle to do motocross.
And even though my father didn't like motorcycles, I was very good at school, so he couldn't say no. As all my school friends were a little older than me, since when I started school, I was not yet 5 years old, so I was always “little Paolo”: when they were 50 , I had the bicycle, when they had the 125, I had the 50 (laughs).
I started doing motocross, but after the 2nd race I seriously injured my left leg (fractured tibia, with a Lancillotti 50 Sachs), and I stayed in the hospital for a long time, and after that I I stopped with the competition bike.
I did a bit of rallying at regional and national level, and after that I did some races in the Italian offshore championship, with the boats, and after that some historic rally races, but after that I decided to concentrate a little on work. »
So the passion for engines does not come from a family environment…
" No not at all. I'll tell you, it's true that my father had very nice cars. The last one was a BMW 3300, so he liked cars, but not necessarily sports cars. But for me, I don't know for what reason, ah yes, maybe I know the reason: I remained very very impressed at the beginning of 71, there was the world championship of endurance prototypes which began with the 1000 km of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and it was always 2 drivers per car who did the endurance races. there was an Italian driver, Ignazio Giunti, who was a Ferrari factory driver with Arturo Merzario who is a great friend now. OK, but before I was a little boy, so I followed the races a lot, because it was a bit like the little Ferrari against Pedro Rodriguez's new Porsche 917. Giunti was in the lead and unfortunately a French driver, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, ran out of fuel with his Matra. He started pushing his car to get to the boxes, and Giunti hit the car and was killed. And there, this image remained in my head and I started to follow a lot of what was happening in the Auto-Moto world, I started to buy Autosprint in Italy, it was the weekly that came out every Thursday, to learn more.
Autosprint #2
So, since that moment, I went to Monza to see Formula 1, naturally like that, to watch the car without having the possibility of entering the paddocks. I went to the 1973 Targa Florio, and I'm happy because it was the last real Targa Florio with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo prototypes and all that.
And the other interesting thing is that at school I had a friend with whom I shared the bench, and his father, he was responsible for Michelin for motorcycle racing in Italy. But this boy had zero interest in motorcycle racing. So I spoke with his father and I told him that I really liked it, and he told me “my son, he doesn’t care what I do, but if you want to come, come!”. So I went with him to the 200 Miles of Imola 1974. If you remember, Giacomo Agostini had stopped the year before with MV Agusta, he had switched to Yamaha and he won the 200 Miles of Daytona and he even won the 200 Miles of Imola. I was there, it was with a paddock pass, in front of the chicane with the straw bales, it wasn't like today, I was inside very close to the motorcycles. It wasn't safe, but it was interesting: I was 16 and with him we went to all the pilots. So I knew all the riders there, there were even the Americans, the Canadians, there was Kenny Roberts, Kel Carruthers, Johnny Cecotto, Steve Baker, Yvon Duhamel, all with the big 750 2-stroke bikes. For me, it was huge!
Then, I have same begin à suivre les rallys. Athen there had le rally from Monte Carlo, it was close from Turin, not too far, and la latest night, it was 3 time on le Col du Turini, then on was going to leaves-socks with mon poor father , here was driving sa car for soft toute la night. We rigorouslyhas with French, by which it was “Lancia contre Alpine”. There's had always an côté les Italian, and the other the Fsupplier, with bwhere thes de SNOW , here were flying between the two. SO here, it is a little the story of my passion for the race: ça ne comes not of the in family, it comes of something tragic."
Did your career move towards motorcycles after the Saab period?
“Yes, well, I worked there from 1980 until 1997, before with Saab and after with Mazda, and that's why I know the Japanese mentality very well, because I went to Japan perhaps 50 times in this period. In Tokyo, where I had Japanese friends, but especially Hiroshima where there was the Mazda factory.
And in 1996, that's when the American fund Texas Pacific Group bought Ducati from the brothers Claudio and Gianfranco Castiglioni, and the entire commercial marketing part left for Varese at Cagiva, and there was no longer any commercial marketing management. . They then signed a contract with a headhunting company to look for managers, especially from the automotive world. They called me, I went the first time in December 1996, but the factory was practically closed, because there was no money in Ducati at that time, and production was almost closed .
So I didn't have a big impression the first time, I said
“um, not sure”. But then they called me back to meet a gentleman who had become the president of Ducati after a few months, Mr. Minoli, who is perhaps not very well known, Federico Minoli. But Federico was a visionary, so he told me “Well listen, we need young people (I was 40) who have ideas, who want to try to do the turnaround. Because if we have a success, it's a fantastic story, but we can go bankrupt because the company is borderline limited”.
I tell myself “well, I'm 40, I'm doing it now because it's a chance to be part of something historic”, because Ducati was then a company which had a good image but which was really in a very difficult situation. There, I started working at Ducati in 97 as export manager, and in 98 I started following the Superbike part a little. That year there were 2 teams, the Virginio Ferrari team with Troy Corser and Pier Francesco Chili, and the Ducati Performance team with Davide Tardozzi who won the championship with Cal Fogerty.
I did a few races, it was my passion, and there we thought a little, with Claudio Domenicali and Minoli, that it was perhaps the time to create a racing division.
Before, it was all mixed up, the technical part was production, a bit of a race, because they were derivatives of production, but it wasn't clear who was doing what. And the other thing was that there wasn't a commercial marketing part for the race. Ducati paid the riders and the equipment given to the teams, gave money to the teams, but the sponsors were up to the team to find.
So it was a lot of cost and nothing in return, other than the image. So we started to build a structure at the technical level with Claudio at the helm, with Fillipo Preziosi and all that, and on the other side a commercial structure. Afterwards, Suppo arrived, and blah blah blah, that was the story… «
Your passion then joined your profession. But what is the job of Sports Director at Ducati?
“That’s a great question. It's everything that's not technical. Part of it is relationships with other builders, relationships with the Federation and Dorna. With Gigi, I am one of the two representatives of Ducati in the MSMA, the Manufacturers' Association. And it is especially the marketing-sponsorship part which is very important for us. Mauro Grassilli manages the marketing communications part of Ducati Corse under my umbrella. I do all the negotiations, drivers, contracts and all that, the management of the satellite team, not at a technical level but at a contractual level, and then I even take care of the supervision of the Superbike part and the contracts that we do in the national championships, in particular BSB where we have successes, unfortunately with the very bad news of Paul Bird who died this week. »
Okay, so what's interesting about your career is that the passion is visibly still present, and even beyond the motorcycle, since we find you from time to time in rallies, in fighter planes or at Middle East with Italian troops. Why all these extreme experiences?
“It’s the need for adrenaline. And I can't show everything on the social networksx (laughs). No, it's true that throughout my life, I have always needed adrenaline.
That's why I started, even though I didn't have a family tradition, to follow and try to do things that I liked. Maybe I was pretty fast, but not consistent. So there I had the chance to to be able to make my career in a place where I have passion. I think I learned a little bit through my education, university, studying in the United States. It might be something a little different from a lot of people who are in the paddocks, with all respect, but it's it's a different story. I'm not a driver who became a team manager or all that, I come with another experience. I like to try to solve problems, and a bit in a diplomatic way. »
Let's be clear, you could have been diplomatic...
" Yes ! Not easy, eh, sometimes, because there are a lot of egos who, even if they perhaps don't have very different ideas, still manage to discuss.
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
But hey, I still need adrenaline. What does that mean? It's a bit crazy stuff, I still really want to experience different cultures. But I also really like scuba diving there, it's the thing that gives me peace of mind. There, there are no phones, no people who annoy me, I'm there with nature, we always discover things that we didn't know before, so it's a surprise. While it may be unfortunate for my family, because having someone who is always gone...
But I don't like tranquility, routine: routine kills me. So, all my friends are more normal, maybe because they don't need to, but I don't like being in my comfort zone. I always prefer to have something to manage. I understand that this is something that does not make friendships easy.”
You still have friends...
“No, sure! They're all my friends from school, we see each other regularly, but it's true that we're never there (at home) on the weekend, or almost never, so normal people say “ next weekend, are we going to the seaside or are we going to the mountains? Ah, yes, where is Paulo? Ah, he's in India'. So it starts to say “OK, when you're in Italy, please call us, because we're trying and you're never there (laughs)”. But it's true that true friendship is always there, even if it's a little difficult. It's a bit of a lifestyle choice, isn't it? A life choice is trying to find a compromise between a job that you can surely do if you have the passion, but you live with the people in the team more than with the family. That's true, and it's something perhaps a little selfish. But hey, that’s it.”
The interview then continued with an evocation of the late Philippe Debarle which will remain private, but also, a sign of great confidence at a time when everyone was asking the question, with an answer that was both cryptic and cryptic. as instructive to the question of whether Marc Marquez would sign for Ducati: “Do you think there is something impossible here (laughs)? We saw things we didn't think were possible, but it's not something Ducati is involved in." (See here).
We would like to thank Paolo Ciabatti for this personal and sincere testimony and will have the pleasure of meeting him. Here or there…
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
Paolo Ciabatti Ducati
