Davide Brivio, MotoGP’s King Midas that F1 didn’t appreciate enough

davide brivio He achieved fame as King Midas and as a specialist in building championship teams virtually from scratch. The 61-year-old is one of the most successful team directors in the history of the world championship, with his record showing him helping the team win six driver’s titles (four with Rossi, one with Lorenzo and one with Mir), four constructors’ titles (all with Yamaha) and six team titles (five with Yamaha and one with Suzuki). Last Sunday he returned to the top of the podium alongside Raul Fernandes and is now winning races with Aprilia’s satellite team.

Brivio was the author of one of the great dramas at the beginning of the current MotoGP era, having very secretly persuaded Valentino Rossi to leave the successful Repsol Honda ranks and join Yamaha’s official team from 2004, a betrayal that Saitama would never forgive. In fact, normally as a courtesy to the champion, he never gave Rossi the last winning bike of the two-stroke era (an NSR500) on which Rossi won the title and which is still on display at the Honda Collection Hall in Motegi.

From 2004 to 2010, Brivio and Yamaha enjoyed great success, and their good eye for attracting young riders and negotiation skills were key to securing future three-time champion Jorge Lorenzo to accompany Valentino Rossi in the 250cc era and later as his official Blue Box successor.

Upon Rossi’s move to Ducati, Brivio became his personal manager, setting up the VR46 Academy in the process. However, the World Championship reasserted itself in 2013, this time to bring legendary Japanese brand Suzuki back into the 1,000cc era of MotoGP. Initially, he served as the test team director and returned to the World Championship in 2015 when he was ready. Again he chose a young driver. maverick vinalesgiving Hamamatsu their first win on this new stage at Silverstone in 2016. And next to him was Aleix Espargaro. He was an excellent developer, as he later demonstrated at Aprilia. Together with the duo of Alex Rins and Joan Mir, they tasted glory again in 2020, winning the drivers’ and teams’ titles in Mallorca, but missing out on the brand title with Ducati by 19 points.

Then January 2021 arrived and with MotoGP pre-season just around the corner, an irresistible offer arrived from Luca Di Meo himself. Di Meo entrusted Alpine F1, a post-Renault project now directed by Fernando Alonso, but it has amassed more frustration than success. “To be honest, it didn’t go as well as I expected. It probably didn’t go as well as Alpine expected. The first year I worked in an F1 team, I had to gain experience, integrate, understand things. “I looked after the driver academy the next year because I had an established program, and I worked on new projects, but I would say my ambition, my desire, was to be more involved with the racing team, to be more involved in the activities,” he recalled at that time.

MotoGP rescued him and tasked him with building a new team from the ground up, NASCAR’s benchmark Trackhouse, but his opponent, Justin Marks, had no experience on two wheels. In 2023 he purchased two seats from RNF and remained an Aprilia customer. He once again demonstrated his negotiating skills when he acquired Moto2 champion Ai Ogura. Ai Ogura gave up her original path of riding a Honda LCR with sponsor Idemitsu in order to bet on Aprilia. Brivio was also responsible for giving MotoGP a second chance. Raul Fernandezwon both Moto3 and Moto2 races, and at the last Grand Prix he rewarded his boss’s trust by leading around the top five to take advantage of a golden opportunity to take his first win in a MotoGP race at Phillip Island.

“What Raul needs is to believe in himself, focus on his job, understand how to operate in the pits with emphasis on the right elements. I must admit that after the team’s success in NASCAR, we wanted to win in MotoGP. We felt pressured, but it is very satisfying,” Brivio admitted this Sunday.

Livio Suppo, another conqueror

The only similar figure in MotoGP these days is the Italian, also 61 years old. Livio SuppoWith Ducati he won a MotoGP title with Casey Stoner, with Casey himself and Repsol Honda he was able to win five titles with Marc Marquez, and in 2022 he signed with Suzuki after project leader Shinichi Sahara took over the team on an interim basis after Brivio’s surprise farewell.

Although he was already in trouble with the project, he continued to win in 2022 with Alex Rins until Hamamatsu City shut down the project at the end of 2023. Spo did the opposite, working from F-1 in marketing for the Benetton team, and in 1999 jumped into the MotoGP paddock with the Honda Benetton team in 125cc and 250cc, before Ducati handed over the reins.