VOL. 52 ISSUE 21 MAY 27, 2015 P105
makes no sense. If Ducati
wants to participate in a
championship Ducati has
to win, or at least try to
win. Ducati is one of the
most important brands in
the world for motorcycles,
but probably it is the most
important brand for the
supersport motorcycle.
So racing is important for
us. If we take part in a
championship we have to
try to win.
You have Ducati
factory bikes in World
Superbike, IDM (Ger-
man Superbike champi-
onship) and CIV (Italian
Superbike champion-
ship). What is the rea-
son you are not involved
in British Superbike (BSB)
and AMA?
We have a team in BSB, and
we are looking for AMA. Maybe
we have to do some things
step-by-step. The first step is
MotoGP and World Superbike.
After that, when you are quite
ready there you can start to
think about some other impor-
tant championships like AMA
and BSB. The BSB team is not
on factory bikes, but in any way
it is official.
This year we have five
Ducatis in World Superbike
and the IDM team would
like to step-up to the World
Championship. Is it possible
to have seven factory bikes
here in World Superbike?
Where is the problem? I do
not see a problem. For
me more teams could
mean more data to im-
prove the bike. We also
sell the bikes. And from
a political point of view it
is important to have more
bikes on the grid.
But if you have more
bikes is it not more of a
problem to create more
spare parts and so on?
No, I think we can man-
age this.
From the World
Superbike champion-
ship point of view, how
close is the machine to
where you want it to be? Are
you right there now because
Chaz Davies is competitive?
For sure we can do better.
You can always do better. We
are quite close but we can
put some improvement on the
chassis point of view. Also we
can work a little bit more on the
engine because at the moment
one of the problems is the per-
formance of the engines. We
would like to improve a little bit
in that area.
Davies was unhappy in
Thailand, because there
were three big straights and
he lost out in acceleration
out of the slow corners. This
used to be the best area for
Ducati so is this what you
are working on now? Is it
"DUCATI IS A
DIFFERENT THING.
DUCATI IS LIKE
FERRARI. CAN YOU
IMAGINE FERRARI
WITHOUT F1? YOU
CAN WIN OR YOU
CAN LOSE BUT
YOU HAVE TO STAY
BECAUSE YOUR
BRAND REQUIRES
RACING."
Davies brought Ducati its
first win for the Panigale in
the World Championship at
Aragon in April.
