EXTRACT FROM SLICK #2 – released in August 2019
This year is much tougher, for you and your team. Did Bautista surprise you?
“Yes and no. When Ducati announced that they were developing for Superbike this fabulous bike, derived from MotoGP, with Alvaro Bautista as a candidate to ride it, it was kind of an unknown until I saw it on the track. But when Lorenzo Zanetti came to Jerez some time ago, I realized that Ducati had done something really good. Bautista, then, has been competitive with Ducati in MotoGP, but also with Honda and Suzuki. That said, it’s not a given that a strong GP rider will immediately adapt to Superbike, as Alvaro did. There have been very good MotoGP riders who struggled in the beginning: Biaggi, Checa, Hayden, Bradl, Aoyama. It is not so easy to adapt quickly. So Alvaro has done, and is doing, a very good job. It is clear, then, that his level is very high. He is the only one who can go that fast on that bike. In the hands of others, it looks like a very difficult bike. As for us, this is the challenge we needed. Me and the team, we need rivals like that.”
Really?
“Yes, because this is the first time Kawasaki has to accept a new reference, and it’s a big challenge. I feel it from inside the team, from inside the company, inside the box. So there’s a change of mentality to be made: we’re struggling, we’re back very strong, and I’m also waiting to see how Kawasaki will react to this challenge.”
Were you afraid that the habit of winning was harmful?
“What happened this year is a wake-up call. This is the new reality, so we could have enjoyed the achievements of our glorious past, or we could have reacted and accepted the challenge, with the consequent risk of not being able to make it. I am happy and proud, because we had no doubts about which path to choose.”
The Bautista-Ducati duo dominated heavily in the beginning.
“And it was difficult to accept that, I don’t deny it. In those cases you always think and hope that the next race things will be different, but this time nothing changed. It was very hard in Assen, because I was beaten badly on a track where I expected to be strong. This disappointment, however, we turned it into a challenge. And we bounced back.”
And how do you feel now?
“I like the mentality we took on, which is that of the underdog (the one who is not favored). In this way it has held up, psychologically, in difficult times, and we have been able to rise again.”
Bautista and Ducati have moved the limits forward. It is obvious that everyone, Kawasaki first, will have to adjust. Is the chase for performance in your opinion the right way forward in SBK? Or should we try to return to a “stock” concept?
“More than anything, I don’t like balancing a championship from the standpoint of engine rpm. It’s not fair, plus it doesn’t allow you to build anything. For four years you’ve heard nothing but ‘Kawasaki has the best package,’ then Ducati set a new benchmark with a new bike that is basically a race bike put into production. But is that the right philosophy for this championship?”
What do you think?
“It’s not the right one. It’s great to ride great bikes, but I’m in favor of the original spirit of Superbike: build the best road bike you can and then do everything you can to ride it hard on the track. Not the opposite. You can’t take a production motorcycle manufacturer by the arm and say, “Hey, now build a race machine to be homologated for street use!” But winning helps marketing; that seems to justify the investment. We went through periods when the rivalry with Ducati provided a good show, but we were winning, and that was seen as boring, even bad for the championship. But this year, at the beginning, the championship had a bigger problem, which was a rider who won races with ten seconds or more advantage; and that yes, that is really boring. Well, now what are they going to do?”
It is the hard life of leaders.
“In the first year everyone was happy for me, because I was the one who had always been on the verge of making it and had finally made it. In the second year people started to get tired of my victories. By the third year my opponents wouldn’t even look at my face in the paddock anymore. Finally, by the fourth year there were requests for changes in the regulations, to penalize Kawasaki. And now those people who wanted me to lose want me to react to Bautista. It’s a peculiar world.”
How do you feel about the current state of Superbike?
“In the last ten years this environment has undergone so many changes. The main thing comes from the fact that the technical regulations have changed constantly since Dorna came in. Let’s say you have to find a baseline, but the Manufacturers are not able to produce special homologations, or even a new model, every year. So SBK today is a very difficult championship to balance because it is tied to production.”
It is a time of confusion.
“I’ve always liked the idea of taking a bike practically from the dealer and making it a real racing bike by working with the product engineers. That spirit of SBK still fascinates me. The real racing bikes are the MotoGP bikes, but it’s nice to have been part of a long and constant development of the production product; however, in SBK we are moving more and more away from the concept of a production-derived bike. All the Manufacturers engaged here have the ride-by-wire system, countless electronic controls on acceleration, deceleration, etc….”
The relationship with fans, however, has remained.
“I like the atmosphere of Superbike; this is still quite a free environment. The opening of the paddock to the public is a good thing; I think the Paddock Show is one of the best initiatives in recent years. It’s not so much media, it’s more of a marketing tool. And it’s nice to be there, still wearing the leather suit. You do interviews with the media, then you start interacting with the fans, who are always enthusiastic. I don’t think any other form of motorsport allows this kind of access to the rider.”
You love quiet, in your personal life, but for work you lead a hectic life. Is living in Northern Ireland a kind of antidote to the hustle and bustle and pressure?
“The Isle of Man was an even more protected place, to be honest. But Northern Ireland is much more accessible, even considering the connections. There are a lot more opportunities to do things, hang out with my childhood friends, be with my family. And having two children is good, because I have more support. My wife is my rock, because she holds everything together while I am on the road. She has a better life, too, being in Ireland. We have been granted our dream home, so I am really happy. Going to Northern Ireland was a decision I made to have a peaceful lifestyle. I always feel very pampered there.”
You wear the colors of the British flag on your suit, and that is abnormal for a Northern Irishman. Without wanting to touch on challenging political topics, why did you make this choice?
“When I started competing in the world championship, the Northern Ireland flag was seen as a rather political thing. By showing pride, it can lead to divided opinions, and I don’t want that to happen. So since Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, I chose to run with the British flag. But my pride still remains: the amount of support I see around me, at the circuits, from people from Northern Ireland, is double the number of British fans for all the other riders. Northern Ireland is a small country, I’m really proud of this support.”
Is it a little disappointing for you to be a multiple World Superbike champion and not have the same media exposure in the UK that Fogarty had?
“It’s hard to compare him and me, but I was second in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year-a big event in the U.K., with huge TV coverage on the BBC, where the public votes for sports personalities-and it made me feel appreciated, supported. There’s a still different problem, though. In the British Superbike environment we who do the World Championship – I’m also talking about Chaz, Tom, Alex, Leon – are overshadowed by the BSB, which is a well-run, commercialized series with a huge fan base. What we’re doing in the World Championship always gets overshadowed a little bit. The BSB is a big event, from the inside you think that’s the real world of SBK.”
Why is Britain, but also Australia or America, not producing potential new Jonathan Rea?
“Over here, managers are more reluctant to take certain risks: I’m talking about the effort to bring pilots abroad, to the World Cup. That is, investing there. I could name three or four Anglo-Saxon riders that could be bet on right now. And there’s Caricasulo, Tarran Mackenzie who rides in the BSB; they no longer very young, but they deserve to be at the World Championship. The same goes for Cameron Beaubier who races MotoAmerica. There would be possibilities, but I think the team managers prefer to keep them in the various national championships, because they are going strong there.”
HOW do you see MotoGP? Do you think it has a better system for growing riders than the Superbike world?
“In MotoGP the depth of field is much wider than in Superbike, and Supersport, which is our entry class. In Moto2, if you have a bad session you can find yourself 15th, in SBK if you make a mistake you are sixth-seventh.”
So the average level is getting higher and higher in GPs.
“Every year much more! In Barcelona I followed FP4: Marquez finished 17th. He won on Sunday. He was obviously working on a race strategy, while the others mounted a tire to make the good lap, but the fact remains that there finding yourself from first to seventeenth is a moment… In my opinion it also affects the fact that it is a prototype championship, so there is no limit to the development of the bikes. You are not harnessed like in Superbike, where you have to work with the engine block and chassis of a street bike. In GP you can do whatever you want. With a good company behind you and a rider who knows how to give directions, you can constantly modify and evolve prototypes, whereas a production-derived bike has limitations that stay that way. Because those are the characteristics of the bikes, and you can’t change them. It’s clear, though, that in MotoGP the budget needed to do that development, even during the championship, is huge.”
Do you think Kawasaki can return to MotoGP any time soon?
“No. And why should it? It is a big investment, with low guarantees of return. And you have to invest a lot, for many years. Aprilia is doing a great job, but it spends so much money just to fight to get into the top 10…. Does it make sense to throw 50 million pounds like that? Maybe it does for marketing reasons, but I don’t know what to say: it’s very, very, difficult.”
This paddock, how do you see it from a marketing perspective?
“I learned several things from the two big companies I worked with. Take Honda: we had had good seasons, but from a marketing point of view they didn’t care about Superbike. In HRC and the Honda Motor offices, I noticed that there was not a single poster extolling a Superbike victory, nor any kind of promotional material regarding SBK. There was something about the Suzuka 8 Hours, but that is a different event.”
Is it different in Kawasaki?
“In the Kawasaki world there are references to Superbike everywhere. They probably have one of the smallest racing departments, but the company is huge. Kawasaki chose to be in Superbike, and they invest. You feel special, knowing that you are doing something that is a priority for the company. I feel like Dovizioso or Petrucci in Ducati: you go to the company, and you are welcomed as a hero. When I went to Kawasaki in 2017, after winning my third SBK World Championship, they took me directly from the airport to the company by helicopter, and all the workers were there, welcoming me. I tell the truth: I was lucky.”
Continued on SLICK#2