At the start of the last Grand Prix of the 2020 MotoGP season, representatives of the six manufacturers involved in the premier category spoke to the press gathered virtually in Portimão.
In turn, everyone was able to take stock of their season before answering questions from journalists.
To all honor and honor, we begin this series today with Davide Brivio, a happy team manager whose Suzuki Ecstar team allowed Joan mir to obtain the title of 2020 world champion even before the last race in Portugal.
Davide Brivio (Suzuki Ecstar Team Manager): “ It's been a great year for us. We didn't start very well in the first two races at Jerez and we didn't score any points with either driver in the first race, then we slowly started to recover. The turning point came in Austria when Joan took the podium. Álex fell but he had also been close to the lead of the race. Then we strengthened our consistency and here we are: Joan won the championship last weekend we are still fighting for second place with Álex Rins, which is very good and very positive. I am very happy and we are also fighting with Ducati for the manufacturers' title. So getting to the last race with our main goals achieved is good, and what also makes us happy and proud is that we were able to achieve double podiums on several occasions. Four times we had our two riders on the podium, and it's a good signal that shows how strong our riders are becoming and how well our bikes are performing. So yes, of course, we are happy! »
What was the main factor in your transformation this year?
« I think this year, consistency has been very important. Many riders have won races and Yamaha has won more races than anyone else, but we have probably managed to stay consistent being often, 11 times, on the podium between the two riders. It's been a strange season. In my opinion, it was also a bit of a different game because we had a lot of times three races in a row when we weren't used to that, but that's OK. But more particularly from a technical point, the double races on the same circuit have changed things a bit compared to what we were used to: When you arrive at the first race, you have to adapt the bike quickly, then to the second, normally, everything tightens up and the competition is even tougher. This is something that has made this season different from normal. But OK, we are happy to have got the title. »
In recent seasons, there has been a lot of talk about a future satellite team for Suzuki but you have proven this year that this is not essential to obtain the rider's title. Does this mean that you will stay with your current strategy or can we hope for a satellite team in the future?
« Yes, we have already talked a lot about a satellite team. From a certain point of view you may think it's not necessary because we won the title, but our engineers don't agree with that (laughs) because on the track we feel we need to have more information. In some situations two drivers is not enough, especially depending on the weather conditions, when you can only have a few sessions in the dry, having more drivers would give you more information. So for us, it's more difficult than for other manufacturers. That said, we would like to do this: As a factory team, we would like to have a satellite team to obtain and share more information, but this project must obtain approval from general management. This is something that is in progress, but as the objective is to do it in 2022, we must decide at the beginning of 2021, say at most in March or April, to have time to organize ourselves. We are still working on this and have not made any decisions so far. »
To be continued with Paolo Ciabatti for Ducati…
Photo credits: MotoGP.com
