New Ducati boss to call on Preziosi’s experience

Long-serving Ducati MotoGP boss Filippo Preziosi will not be completely cut out of the Bologna factory’s world championship project, despite being axed at the end of last season.

Preziosi was the highest profile casualty of Valentino Rossi’s dismal two-year stint with Ducati when he was moved from Ducati Corse to production bike projects in a winter management shake-up.

But new Ducati chief Bernhard Gobmeier said on the second day of Ducati’s annual team launch at the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort in Italy that he would be tapping into Preziosi’s experience and knowledge in the future.

Gobmeier said: “I personally will draw on the experience of Filippo. We are in contact and we have an open relationship in terms of bringing the company and Ducati Corse forward. He is still dedicated to the success of our race effort and with his new role there will be additional communication between racing and the production side of the business. He will also give input in terms of the history.

There is a history and why things were done in a certain way. I need to learn a lot of those things that I didn’t have the chance to learn in these few days so far. This is quite a normal way of exploring the full potential of what is in the company.

There was not just Filippo as the main engineer of the company but there are a lot of very good and talented engineers who know a lot and have a lot of experience and good ideas. We will put all of those together to make the bike better. That will hopefully speed up our development process and speed up our competitiveness.”