Reciprocating Loyalty in Motor Racing
"The obstacles we found ourselves up against were various, decisive and, in a sense, inexplicable. It seems that the sporting spirit, which has always been part of motorcycle racing and which has given the public its great passion for this sport, had suddenly disappeared."
Those are the words of Roberto Zanni, president of Japan Tobacco International, Europe, makers of Camel cigarretes. Mr Zanni was commenting on his company's failed efforts to get Max Biaggi a ride in Motogp in 2006. As I posted earlier, Biaggi has been vetoed by HRC. It would now appear that his inexplicably loyal backer's efforts to get him on a bike with the other major teams in motogp have come to nothing. For a while, a ride with the Kawasaki factory team seemed a sure thing. In the end a deal wasn't possible and Zanni is vague, to say the least, about why.
The upshot of it all is that Biaggi will not be a member of the most exclusive paddock in motorcycle racing next season, and Camel are cutting their links both with HRC and the satellite team run by Spaniard, Sito Pons, which they sponsored for the last 3 years.
HRC will not be too miffed about the loss. They must have been counting on it, so adamant were they about keeping Biaggi off an RC211V next year. The situation for Sito Pons, on the other hand, is a little different. Satellite Teams are used to having their riders picked for them either by their factory or their sponsor. It was hardly a secret that Pons' team dreaded the return of Biaggi to its fold but, faced with either that or no sponsorship, I'm sure Sito Pons would have just resigned himself to working with the difficult Roman. He had lined up Spaniard, Carlos Checa, and Australian rookie and 250cc runner-up, Casey Stoner, for next season. Stoner, smelling trouble, jumped ship and returned to the fold of LCR, the Italian team that he has worked with for 4 of his 5 years in Motogp. So now Pons is a one man team with no sponsor. It remains to be seen if he will bail himself out of this pickle like he has bailed himself out of many others in the past. The Spanish motorbike press is fond of observing that he has the 7 lives of the proverbial cat (in Spain cats would appear not to be as lucky as in the Anglo-Saxon world!). Stoner, meanwhile, is sitting pretty on a HRC ride for next season.
What I'd like to know is what Zanni meant by a lack of "sporting spirit" on the part of motogp teams in not giving Biaggi a seat. Camel's loyalty to the Italian, to me, is inexplicable. Biaggi had no problem leaving them behind in 2004 to join the Repsol HRC factory team. As Sete Gibernau will tell anyone, sponsors are only as loyal as their latest marketing reports recommend them to be. It was his rejection of the Repsol seat last season which resulted in it going to Biaggi. At the time, the two times Motogp runner-up, and the only rider to give Valentino Rossi a run for his money, cited loyalties to his sponsors, Telefonica, as reasons for his not making the move. After a poor season this year for Gibernau, and with Dani Pedrosa abandoning Telefonica to join Repsol HRC in his first year in the queen class, Telefonica had no qualms in announcing its departure from Motogp racing and made no secret of its opinion that Pedrosa has been both ungrateful and disloyal in making the switch to the factory team. Gibernau, meanwhile, has been obliged to switch to the factory Ducati team.
All the above shows sponsors getting a well-deserved reality check in Motogp. As one would expect, they are liable to try to exert their influence to put their interests over those of the sport. I've already commented on the aging paddock with riders holding onto good team seats in spite of poor race performances. Some commentators argue for the sponsors to be treated with more respect by both the manufacturers and certain riders because of the amount of money they invest in the sport. But, as Telefonica have clearly shown us that their investments are only made when the return is guaranteed, I am very much in favour of their influence being checked. Of course, no official efforts will be made to do that. The sport's survival depends on its big sponsors. But at least we can applaud riders like Pedrosa, who make decisions based on their own competitive interests and not on the amount of money being offered to them or - as in Gibernau's supposed case - something so stupid as "loyalty".
Valentino Rossi, too, has come under fire from some quarters for provoking a dispute between Yamaha and Altadis, the French company that own Gauloise and Fortuna, among other tobacco brands. Rossi signed for a third season with Yamaha earlier this year, but he stipulated that he could not be sponsored by a tobacco firm - Gauloise and Fortuna have sponsored Yamaha for the last few years. This move by the Italian champion probably has less to do with any high-minded stance against tobacco than his plans to test extensively for Formula 1 with Ferrari next season. The Italian firm is sponsored by Marlboro, an Altadis competitor. The result has been a battle between the latter and Yamaha which has ended up in the courts. Yamaha has officially announced that its relationship with Altadis has come to an end. Altadis has countered with a press statement warning Yamaha that until their dispute is resolved by the courts, they are prohibited by their contract from using any advertising that is a direct competitor of the French tobacco firm.
What galls is the sponsors' attempts to potray themselves as a wronged party. In fairness, Altadis have more of a case than Telefonica, as they had a contract to sponsor Yamaha's factory team till 2007. That said, I don't think they had any grounds to reject Yamaha's plans to field a two-man Gauloise factory team and a one-man Rossi team. To me, that is another example of a sponsor abusing its position as paymaster to the detriment of the sport.
Anyway, I'm glad to see that Telefonica's plans to concentrate their sponsorship investment on Formula 1 have been dealt a severe blow by Fernando Alonso's signing with soon to be Vodafone-sponsored Mercedes McLaren for 2007. There have been reports (in Spanish)that Alonso wanted to take revenge on Telefonica for stalling his F1 career jump in 1999. The Spanish telephone giant was trying to expand its Latin American market at the time, and so chose Argentine driver Gaston Mazzacane over Alonso for the Minardi Team. Loyalty indeed!
Those are the words of Roberto Zanni, president of Japan Tobacco International, Europe, makers of Camel cigarretes. Mr Zanni was commenting on his company's failed efforts to get Max Biaggi a ride in Motogp in 2006. As I posted earlier, Biaggi has been vetoed by HRC. It would now appear that his inexplicably loyal backer's efforts to get him on a bike with the other major teams in motogp have come to nothing. For a while, a ride with the Kawasaki factory team seemed a sure thing. In the end a deal wasn't possible and Zanni is vague, to say the least, about why.
The upshot of it all is that Biaggi will not be a member of the most exclusive paddock in motorcycle racing next season, and Camel are cutting their links both with HRC and the satellite team run by Spaniard, Sito Pons, which they sponsored for the last 3 years.
HRC will not be too miffed about the loss. They must have been counting on it, so adamant were they about keeping Biaggi off an RC211V next year. The situation for Sito Pons, on the other hand, is a little different. Satellite Teams are used to having their riders picked for them either by their factory or their sponsor. It was hardly a secret that Pons' team dreaded the return of Biaggi to its fold but, faced with either that or no sponsorship, I'm sure Sito Pons would have just resigned himself to working with the difficult Roman. He had lined up Spaniard, Carlos Checa, and Australian rookie and 250cc runner-up, Casey Stoner, for next season. Stoner, smelling trouble, jumped ship and returned to the fold of LCR, the Italian team that he has worked with for 4 of his 5 years in Motogp. So now Pons is a one man team with no sponsor. It remains to be seen if he will bail himself out of this pickle like he has bailed himself out of many others in the past. The Spanish motorbike press is fond of observing that he has the 7 lives of the proverbial cat (in Spain cats would appear not to be as lucky as in the Anglo-Saxon world!). Stoner, meanwhile, is sitting pretty on a HRC ride for next season.
What I'd like to know is what Zanni meant by a lack of "sporting spirit" on the part of motogp teams in not giving Biaggi a seat. Camel's loyalty to the Italian, to me, is inexplicable. Biaggi had no problem leaving them behind in 2004 to join the Repsol HRC factory team. As Sete Gibernau will tell anyone, sponsors are only as loyal as their latest marketing reports recommend them to be. It was his rejection of the Repsol seat last season which resulted in it going to Biaggi. At the time, the two times Motogp runner-up, and the only rider to give Valentino Rossi a run for his money, cited loyalties to his sponsors, Telefonica, as reasons for his not making the move. After a poor season this year for Gibernau, and with Dani Pedrosa abandoning Telefonica to join Repsol HRC in his first year in the queen class, Telefonica had no qualms in announcing its departure from Motogp racing and made no secret of its opinion that Pedrosa has been both ungrateful and disloyal in making the switch to the factory team. Gibernau, meanwhile, has been obliged to switch to the factory Ducati team.
All the above shows sponsors getting a well-deserved reality check in Motogp. As one would expect, they are liable to try to exert their influence to put their interests over those of the sport. I've already commented on the aging paddock with riders holding onto good team seats in spite of poor race performances. Some commentators argue for the sponsors to be treated with more respect by both the manufacturers and certain riders because of the amount of money they invest in the sport. But, as Telefonica have clearly shown us that their investments are only made when the return is guaranteed, I am very much in favour of their influence being checked. Of course, no official efforts will be made to do that. The sport's survival depends on its big sponsors. But at least we can applaud riders like Pedrosa, who make decisions based on their own competitive interests and not on the amount of money being offered to them or - as in Gibernau's supposed case - something so stupid as "loyalty".
Valentino Rossi, too, has come under fire from some quarters for provoking a dispute between Yamaha and Altadis, the French company that own Gauloise and Fortuna, among other tobacco brands. Rossi signed for a third season with Yamaha earlier this year, but he stipulated that he could not be sponsored by a tobacco firm - Gauloise and Fortuna have sponsored Yamaha for the last few years. This move by the Italian champion probably has less to do with any high-minded stance against tobacco than his plans to test extensively for Formula 1 with Ferrari next season. The Italian firm is sponsored by Marlboro, an Altadis competitor. The result has been a battle between the latter and Yamaha which has ended up in the courts. Yamaha has officially announced that its relationship with Altadis has come to an end. Altadis has countered with a press statement warning Yamaha that until their dispute is resolved by the courts, they are prohibited by their contract from using any advertising that is a direct competitor of the French tobacco firm.
What galls is the sponsors' attempts to potray themselves as a wronged party. In fairness, Altadis have more of a case than Telefonica, as they had a contract to sponsor Yamaha's factory team till 2007. That said, I don't think they had any grounds to reject Yamaha's plans to field a two-man Gauloise factory team and a one-man Rossi team. To me, that is another example of a sponsor abusing its position as paymaster to the detriment of the sport.
Anyway, I'm glad to see that Telefonica's plans to concentrate their sponsorship investment on Formula 1 have been dealt a severe blow by Fernando Alonso's signing with soon to be Vodafone-sponsored Mercedes McLaren for 2007. There have been reports (in Spanish)that Alonso wanted to take revenge on Telefonica for stalling his F1 career jump in 1999. The Spanish telephone giant was trying to expand its Latin American market at the time, and so chose Argentine driver Gaston Mazzacane over Alonso for the Minardi Team. Loyalty indeed!
posted by purefunction at 2:12 AM
1 Comments:
Nice and interesting text, i'm not completly sure about all you said, but at least any blog text turns me so interested.
Huggies.
Robert Barber
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