In the midst of the morrocotudo mess to know who will be Pecco Bagnaia’s partner in the factory team in 2025, Ducati must deal these days with other market chips that inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy. All of this is a consequence of the great successes achieved in recent years. In MotoGP, not only the riders mark the future of the projects, and within the paddock There are many who claim that it is more critical to lose the engineers who know the best kept secrets inside each garage.
“We lose information, and that is the big problem,” summarizes Gigi Dall’Igna, head of Ducati Corse, in conversation with EL PAÍS. The flight of talent suffered by the Bologna factory, which these days races at home during the Italian GP, is notable, although it does not worry it too much. “If someone leaves the team for whatever reason, we have the next generation pushing and ready. The main drawback is rather that these engineers who leave the team take away key information, the secrets of our technology. In this company we share most of the details with all our engineers, because our vision is to grow together, hand in hand, uniformly, expanding this transparent work culture that we have,” he explains.
The great guru of the premier class, who is currently musing whether to bring Jorge Martín or Marc Márquez to the official team next year, has not only turned his motorcycles into the most coveted by riders, but has also raised the value of its engineers, real sweets for the rest of the factories. In recent years, the departure of specialists to rival teams, several at the stroke of a checkbook, has included some of the professionals with key participation in the transformation of the red motorcycle into the absolute reference of the championship.
Yamaha, which seems to see the light at the end of the tunnel in the midst of the Japanese giants’ crisis, hired for this year the former head of Ducati’s aerodynamics area, Marco Nicotra, and then acquired the services of Massimo Bartolini, right-hand man of Dall’Igna and performance engineer at Borgo Panigale. The Austrian KTM, one of the factories with the greatest economic muscle, has been fishing in the Italian garage for years. From Fabiano Sterlacchini, a technician who went through the engine, electronics and aerodynamics departments, to Alberto Giribuola, chief mechanic during Andrea Dovizioso’s runners-up finishes. This exodus has multiplied since they achieved the first constructors’ titles (2020) and team titles (2021), after many years of breaking ground.
“In Europe there are very good technicians, with a lot of experience,” says Alberto Puig, Honda sports director, who last year tried to catch precisely the biggest fish in Ducati. “Not everyone is available, there are many people who are high, but within what we can we are looking for options,” he adds, without specifically mentioning the name of Dall’Igna or other objectives. The pursuit of fresh perspectives for the technical section within the Japanese brand, mired in one of the biggest crises in its history, is advancing slowly, but it comes from afar.
“When a coach comes from another culture, with another approach to racing, it is very interesting. He can enter the team with a totally different vision, and that is what is intended,” says the former Spanish driver, who has been working for the golden wing brand for 35 years. “The reality, the data, tell us that Europeans have taken a very important step forward,” he concludes. They do not need more reasons to try, even if it costs them, to transform the work system and include more European specialists, such as Kalex consultant Alex Baumgartel, or a former Ducati employee like Filippo Tosi.
Another prominent member of paddock Who provides a parallel vision to this matter is Massimo Rivola, head of Aprilia, the other brand that races at home in Mugello. The former Ferrari sports director knows very well that Dall’Igna emerged from the Noale youth academy, with many fewer resources than its neighbor in Borgo Panigale. With the benefit of time, that change of ranks in 2013 represents the most notable drain of talent in the contemporary history of racing motorcycling.
If one thing is clear, it is that European engineers, specifically Italian ones, are in high demand in MotoGP these days. “Surely, Italian universities, I am referring to engineering universities for example, are excellent. We work a lot with them, including the University of Padua. I believe that Italians, by nature, have an ingenuity and a capacity to invent that others do not have, in addition to an immeasurable passion,” Rivola ventures about this current dominance in the premier category. “It’s hard to say why, but it’s a reality. We have a lot of talent coming out of Padua, Bologna, Modena, Milan, and all I know is that it works,” Dall’Igna agrees.
Both factories work together with the large universities of northern Italy, in constant synergy, to detect the best talents and offer them a place in their career programs from a very young age. Puig says that Honda has paid attention to this detail, which is by no means trivial. “We must better develop Japanese engineers, who come from the university and have a lot of theory, but they lack practice. The practice is to be on the circuit, in Europe, and spend hours, hours and more hours,” he emphasizes.
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