The rumor that Ducati’s MotoGP project manager Livio Suppo will be leaving the team at end of season started gaining steam after Casey Stoner’s return from his three race break and after the Sepang GP.
Michael Scott from GP Week first reported the rumor, now Dean Adams from Superbikeplanet has picked up on it, with more Italian gossip saying that Suppo could be heading to Honda HRC and he’s another item on Honda’s Shuehi Nakamoto’s shopping list after picking up part of Jorge Lorenzo’s Yamaha crew.
Apparently Vittoriano Guareschi’s promotion to team manager has sent speculation in some sort of frenzy saying that Ducati are paving the way for the arrival of Valentino Rossi in 2011 and that Suppo may be standing in the way of this move.
While it’s true that Rossi has made public overtures towards Ducati, but this year hasn’t been the first time nor will it be the last, but it is also true that Filippo Preziosi has always wanted Rossi in Ducati.
The Italian engineer, father of the Desmosedici, often has very nice words for Rossi and considers him one of the greatest riders, even when Stoner won the championship in 2007, Preziosi stated that it was wonderful that a small company like Ducati could beat the giant Japanese manufacturers, but above all they beat the great Valentino Rossi.
The idea that Ducati would let Suppo go seems pretty far fetched.
The Italian manager has been in Ducati for years and on the Desmosedici project since it’s beginning and is highly respected and has been through thick and thin with the company and has always fallen on his feet, despite some bad judgement calls, the last being the PR handling during Stoner’s 10 week absence, with several contradictory statements that fueled even more speculation on Stoner’s condition.
We’ve already seen reshuffling in the team structure this year, with Ducati finally understanding that it’s not sending their underperforming riders to a psychologist as they did with Marco Melandri, but making their bike more rider friendly.
They hired Juan Martinez who became Nicky Hayden’s crewchief at the LeMans GP, while Christian Populin was promoted technical coordinator and we believe that Guareschi’s promotion is just another move in this direction.
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