Althea Racing’s team owner Genesio Bevilacqua sort of reminds us of Davide Tardozzi (who was sniffing around Misano when several Superbike teams were testing two weeks ago), a straight talker with very firm ideas regarding World Superbike racing.
This video interview was done on Saturday at Imola just after Carlos Checa took an amazing Superpole record on hard tires, and Bevilacqua (which translated means drink water) touched several bases, which we’ve believe you’ll find interesting, so we’re giving you a recap of his opinions.
The Althea Racing manager is not at all convinced that the one bike rule, which should be impleted in 2012 as a cost saving measure will make that much of a difference.
According to his calculations, teams who prefer the technical aspects of racing as his team does, compared to those who look at it solely from a business point of view will not be advantaged and believes there will be very little savings, budget wise.
Bevilacqua explained that despite team owners invoking cost restricting rules, these teams refuse to apply the same logic when it comes to rider salaries which take up a big part of a team’s funds, especially squads like his.
Those teams who want cost saving measures are, with their manufacturer’s backing, offering riders million euro salaries and benefits that privateer squads like his, just can’t meet, and this he pointed out, is completely incoherent with any type of cost saving demand.
Talking about silly season, the manager wants to keep Checa in his team (but the soon-to-be World Champion is being tempted to leave as he’s has some very big money offers), he also revealed that he’s very interested in Superstock rider Davide Giugliano who he want to bring into Superbikes and not as a second string rider.
Obviously Bevilacqua was asked his opinion about MotoGP and more specifically the problems Ducati and Valentino Rossi are encountering.
Here the manager states that sometimes even the best intentions aren’t enough, and even if everyone believes the bike is difficult, he thinks that the bike is basically good and this has already been demonstrated, adding that this doesn’t take away any merits from Rossi who has 9 World titles, but ultimately Rossi is an absolute protaganist while Ducati considers the team the protaganist, and these two ideas are clashing at the moment, and maybe causing confusion, which takes away time and energy in trying to find solutions, even if he believes that they don’t exist at the moment.