Davide Brivio is one of the most experienced and successful managers in modern MotoGP. In his career, he has brought Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo’s Yamaha to the top of the world – multiple times – won a historic world title with Joan Mir on Suzuki in 2020, and in the last three seasons he has taken on the challenge of the American team Trackhouse, taking it from the role of Cinderella of the starting grid to – at the moment – the best independent team in MotoGP. From 2027 he will join, although he cannot say it yet, Honda HRC to try to lead the rebirth of the Japanese giant.
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During the Mugello weekend FormulaPassion.it met Brivio for a nice exclusive chat, in which we talked about his present and future, the Trackhouse team, and MotoGP itself.
There was the crash between Raul Fernandez and Jorge Martin in Barcelona and we all saw Massimo Rivola come to you on live worldwide TV to complain. Is everything clear between you now?
Yes, everything is fine. According to all of us, the Barcelona race was just a small alarm – I wanted to say red flag, but that’s not the case – a small warning sign to understand that we need to better manage these actions among all of us Aprilia. So it was an opportunity to be smarter and to learn to better handle similar situations in the future, which is what we will all do together.
Last year I remember you told me that Trackhouse’s goal was to become the best independent team. You have already achieved that…
Yes, for now. But the championship is long. At the moment it is true. The nice thing is that there has been a quite interesting progression but I repeat, now we cannot judge this result because we are only at the seventh race. But the first year the team was ninth, the second year we managed to be seventh and this year’s goal was to improve on this seventh place.
Do you think this ranking can last?
I think it can last, yes, because we have competitive bikes, we have riders who I think are strong, who are gaining more and more confidence in their machines. Raul already won a Grand Prix last year and when he is in shape, when he is right, he can win again. And Ogura is also becoming more and more consistent, so I think there is a chance to continue like this.
Do you think you still lack some maturity in managing certain situations? Sometimes both your riders seem a bit reckless…
The only thing you can say to manage these situations in my opinion is to ask the riders to have respect.
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The impression is that these two have the margin to fight for podiums and wins in almost every weekend
Yes, the feeling is a bit like that. The impression is that when we arrive on Thursday at a circuit we think we can fight. Then you know, you can finish tenth, fifteenth, you can finish third, but we arrive knowing we have chances to fight. Then we start to see how FP1 goes, we see if we are in the top ten or not, and then the weekend develops and it can also go very badly. But we know we always have good chances.
You mentioned Raul Fernandez’s win last year: is it a realistic goal this year to think about repeating at least one race victory?
In my opinion, we have to set this goal, we are here for this. Clearly it is difficult, we are perfectly aware that it is not at all taken for granted and we are aware of how strong the others are. But we have to try.
With Liberty, where are you with the negotiations? Both you as independent teams, and – if you know anything – the manufacturers?
We are all a bit waiting. It seems that everything is going very well, we are very close. Things are even at the finish line. This is a marriage that has to be done, so it will be done.
One last question, a bit more personal: when will we know something about your future?
Well, I don’t want to avoid this question, but really now I don’t want to think about the future. I am working for Trackhouse and I want to try to see if I can help the team achieve the best possible results. Now there is Trackhouse, let’s think about Trackhouse and then the future. Quartararo? He is a great rider, everyone knows that.
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