Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/510271
INTERVIEW DUCATI CEO CLAUDIO DOMENICALI P76 we're sitting in was here in 1926. Today Ducati is in good hands, because the VW Audi Group is obviously a very solid organization that is very inter- ested in keeping the company in Italy. Their priority is to keep the company's Italian roots, and they want the brand and the com- pany to be developed in order to get sharper and sharper in its products and its technology. They want the Ducati brand to shine, so they are pushing me to do everything necessary to make them proud of owning this jewel of a motorcycle company, in terms of what products we develop, and how we treat our customers and relate to them. And how many races you win, and how many champion- ships you win? How many races we win—yes, that's a priority for them, for sure! Do you believe that for Ducati's typical customer, winning races in World Su- perbike is more important than Moto GP success? Is it a priority that he or she can ride a bike that won the World Championship? I think that Superbike rac- ing is very important indeed for Ducati. That's why when I took over leading this company I re- established the factory Super- bike race team, and restored the resources to it that had been taken away, trying to be at the level that is appropriate for our customers' expectations. On the other hand, MotoGP is very visible and is a kind of technological war, and so when you are part of the Volkswagen Group you cannot give up on MotoGP, because now we are big enough to compete with the big guys. How about another very different kind of racing—U.S. flat-track? Troy told us about his plan to do four or five flat-track mile races in the USA this year, with the special Ducati bike prepared Domenicali has a chat with Cycle News' contributor Alan Cathcart at the Panigale launch. by the Lloyd Bros, and we find the idea quite interesting… What are your personal ob- jectives for Ducati for the next five years, apart from meeting VW Audi's expectations? Within the next five years I definitely want Ducati to be viewed by the general public as the most aspirational brand in the motorcycle industry. We don't want to have a motorcycle for every customer, because we don't want to offer every type of product just for the sake of it. And the same goes for all differ- ent price sectors. Instead, I want us to have a range of models that are the object of desire, representing the pinnacle of technology in their own individual sector, available from a point of sales network of which reflects the spirit of the company, but which also gives top level aftersales service. We want our customers, when they get in touch with us either online or through our dealerships, to be totally satisfied with how we have responded to them. When they ride our products I want them to get a feeling of quality, of perfec- tion and of Italian spirit delivered via creative design, attention to detail and pure old-fashioned passion. And I want us to con- tinue to follow a road that nobody else has travelled in developing models, and perhaps our pres- ence in new segments. CN