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Paolo Ciabatti experienced his first WDW in Misano in his new role as head of the motocross project for the Borgo Panigale factory. But there's more to Ciabatti than just motocross, as his most recent 'mission' was in fact at Suzuka, where Ukyo Kagayama's team fielded a Panigale V4 in SBK configuration coming close to the podium in the 8 Hours, the Endurance classic par excellence.
This is your first WDW in your new role, how are you experiencing it?
"I am living well this new project, which I actually started following back in 2023. Today it has become my main project since the beginning of 2024. I still follow the main national SBK championships and the Suzuka 8 Hours, which was an incredible experience. A race that is hard to illustrate to those who have not experienced it. We came home with a 4th place finish which is definitely an important result, but we were third with half an hour to go. Then the Suzuki finished the race better than we did."
The motocross project is also going very well.
"I would say that speaking of motocross, it is the first time for a manufacturer like Ducati to show up at WDW not only with track bikes, but also with this new project. I spent the day taking a lot of pictures, showing the bike to fans, and this shows that there is a great interest. Then certainly having Cairoli and Lupino with us is definitely interesting, they are two riders that everyone knows."
It seems like a very different world than what you were used to, how do you experience it?
"Yes, motocross is a different world, where surely passion is the thing that drives these riders more than anything else. Obviously they are great professionals, they prepare so much physically. It's an objectively dangerous sport, because crashes are frequent. But even at the amateur level, you can read this passion in spectators at all levels, from the national races to the world championship we saw in Arco di Trento. This can only fill Ducati with additional enthusiasm, because you can see that those who follow motocross generally practice it or have practiced it and really love the sport."
Ducati is the benchmark in track racing, do you think it can become the same in motocross as well?
"It is a big challenge, we believe we have approached it with the right approach but with typical Ducati technical solutions so our bike does not even resemble from a technical point of view any of the others, The results for now are backing us up, we are leading the Italian championship after the last race where we dominated with Cairoli and Lupino in really very difficult conditions. We managed to get one-two in both races and these days we are in Holland and Belgium to test the bike on sand tracks which are the toughest conditions. Everyone tells me that if you can set the bike up to go strong on those kinds of surfaces, then you go strong on all surfaces. We stay with our feet on the ground, but we know that in 2025 we will do the world championship with two riders that we cannot announce yet, with the goal of doing well. It will take steps to get to the top, but we think we have set up the program to allow Ducati to excel in this discipline as well."
Back to the Suzuka 8 Hours. Quite an adventure for you and for Ducati.
"The Suzuka 8 Hours is a race in itself, the most important one for the Japanese manufacturers, the one that attracts the most spectators ever in Japan, much more than MotoGP in Motegi just to be clear. Then it is the race in which the Japanese manufacturers invest the most, especially Honda. We participated for the first time with a full-SBK bike, Mizuno did the fastest lap with our bike, we were always fighting for the podium. There are things we need to sort out, for example, the times in the multiple stops to fill the tank are too long. We learned a lot of things, but we also proved that our bike is reliable. This is the first time a Ducati in SBK configuration has done an 8-hour sprint race, because Suzuka is not a real Endurance, but rather this: an 8-hour sprint. I would say that more than Endurance, which remains a very interesting championship, Ducati was interested in gaining experience at the Suzuka 8 Hours because it is a race that all our riders would like to do."
Pecco seems to want to race it.
"Pecco would like to do it, and I think the fact that Valentino did it and won it, is an incentive for the Academy guy to try to retrace the footsteps of their master. There is still one more year when the current Panigale will be used in racing, so I hope we can come back to Suzuka in 2025 to be able to fight it out because of the experience gained. Although there isn't a Suzuka 8 Hours that hasn't been won by a Japanese manufacturer, we'd like to write a little piece of history in that as well."
Winning it for Ducati would be a great satisfaction, but it seems very difficult.
"It would be difficult, but difficult challenges have never scared us. Now we are dedicated to analyzing all the data collected in this edition to understand how to work to improve, there are several aspects on which we need to improve. I repeat, I would say that having finished it competitively, having set the fastest lap in the race and without any major technical problems, is already a great result. Now we will work for 2025."
