The former Suzuki team manager recounts how Valentino Rossi was one step away from signing, but the agreement fell through due to a matter of time.
Davide Brivio has collaborated with Yamaha for twenty years, accompanying the rise of Valentino Rossi riding the M1. When the Doctor left the Iwata manufacturer to attempt a world “coup” with Ducati, the Brianza manager also left the team, but did not follow the Doctor. After several years he reveals an interesting backstory unknown to many.
In an interview with Slick Magazine he looks back on the steps since 2011, “when I worked for Valentino. I too left Yamaha at the end of 2010, like him. At the end of 2011 Suzuki [ha lasciato la MotoGP]but it was known in the paddock that they wanted to stop already at the end of 2010“. When the Hamamatsu team closed the parenthesis of MotoGP however, she had warned that she would be back, so it was goodbye, even if no one knew when.
Valentino Rossi one step away from Suzuki
At the time David Brivio he never would have imagined that in a few years time he would write history together with the Suzuki brand. Meanwhile Valentino Rossi and Ducati were unable to harmonize, the results were rather disappointing and after their first season together the champion from Tavullia, who already boasted seven MotoGP titles, was looking around to find a way out for 2013.
Early 2012 Shinichi Saharathe head of the Suzuki MotoGP project, contacted Davide Brivio to test the waters and see if he was available to sign Valentino Rossi for the 2014 season.”I asked Valentino and he replied that he needed a bike for 2013, not for 2014. So he couldn’t wait for Suzuki… And that’s exactly what I said to Shinichi Sahara: ‘Thanks for your interest, but don’t we can do anything’“.
After a more or less short wait, Sahara contacted Brivio again to offer him the role of team manager, with Italy as the team’s headquarters. “It was the summer of 2012, early autumn I went to Japan to start talking about the new project“, recalled the manager today passed in Formula 1 with Alpine. In 2020 Suzuki will win the MotoGP title with Joan Mir before Davide Brivio’s farewell. For just one year, the destinies of Valentino Rossi and the Hamamatsu brand did not cross. Who knows how it would have gone if Suzuki had returned to Top Class a year earlier and with Valentino at the helm…
