Livio Suppo is a man with an edifying journey in the paddock. He arrived at Ducati after working for Benetton in 1996 in the 250 category then in 1998 also in 125 with Marco Melandri, and in 1999. He was team director for the reds, a position he continued within the powerful Repsol Honda team. He is now removed from the environment and gives free rein to his memories... Which are so many backyard secrets revealed! He has us lifting the veil on the tumultuous end of the 2015 season which sealed the relationship between Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez. Now he details the latter's arrival at HRC...
Livio Suppo, Racing Consultant arrived at Honda after good and loyal service to Ducati. But his red period ended in a somewhat tense way, a situation that he details with, as a common thread, the case Casey Stoner, which he will find precisely at HRC… “ In 2009, Nakamoto, vice president of HRC, asked me to send him a CV, because they were looking for a manager for MotoGP. 2009 was a very difficult year for me at Ducati, as Stoner skipped three races due to physical problems due to lactose intolerance. I defended the pilot, also against the sponsor's attacks. In short, it was a complicated period and the idea of working for HRC fascinated me. I told Filippo Preziosi, then Ducati technical director, and I went to Tokyo at my own expense between the Australian and Malaysian Grand Prix to meet the president of Honda. They offered me a 5 or 10 year contract. They gave me great confidence and I was convinced. »
Installed at Honda, Livio Suppo, Racing Consultant worked to attract into his nets Casey Stoner. A successful mission: “ we were the forerunners in the fashion of signing contracts for the following season well in advance » remembers the Italian. “ For HRC it was essential to have Stoner and we took him on very early, right from Jerez in 2010. Casey was unhappy with the way things were going at Ducati in 2009 and he wanted to change. Furthermore, in 2009 and 2010 he no longer understood whether he could no longer go fast or whether the lack of results was due to the bike. He therefore decided to come to HRC, the house with which Doohan, his hero, had won 5 world championships. The condition was that his entire team followed him: if his team stayed at Ducati, he would stay there »
Ducati was therefore stripped and it is not the arrival of Valentino Rossi, also with his team, who filled the void left… But the Australian, in full glory, decided to stop everything: “ he disrupted Honda's plans: we thought he would race for us for a few years. In 2011 we had already signed with Márquez, with the idea of forming a Márquez/Stoner team. In Jerez in 2012, Nakamoto made him an offer which seemed essential to us from an economic point of view. It was really a lot of money, but he said no. I think he had come to the exasperation of this life. »
So things hang by a thread... Having a duo Stoner / Márquez was therefore promised, but the first city branched off, leaving the field open to the second... Which should have already been in place! suppo reveals in fact: “ for me and for Nakamoto, it had already seemed in 125 and in Moto2 that he was a phenomenon. We signed him in 2011, before he was injured in Malaysia. Alzamora wanted to take him straight to MotoGP, then he got injured and never talked about it again, but we were considering a solution for 2012. His injury changed his manager's plans. »
Fortunately Marc Márquez recovered and we know the rest. But read carefully Livio SuppoOn Moto.it, we see that at no time Dani Pedrosa was not considered. His fate was sealed squarely in 2011. The injury of one, then the departure of the other allowed him to pursue a career that Honda no longer considered for him. We are no longer too surprised, therefore, by his current happiness in sharing his experience with the factory. KTM...
