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They dart before our eyes like obsidian arrows. Beautiful.
The MotoGP bikes with a carbon-black livery are a sight to behold. We enthusiasts are excited about them. We like them, on a visceral level. And not only because carbon for motorsports fans has always been a symbol of wealth, but because it's also been noticed by the world of cars, which uses it both as a structural material (and we'd be damned if it wasn't), but also as an embellishment for sport and non-sport models.
A few years ago, when I was going to visit a very exclusive club owned by Andrea Iannone in Vasto, we noticed that the walls were covered in carbon panels.
Real ones? We asked, immediately regretting the silly question: would The Maniac ever use such a cheap component as faux carbon.
As you can imagine, during this Sepang shakedown, we feasted our eyes on the carbon, imagining when all the teams will have bikes in the colors of their sponsors. But an afterthought then baffled us: will they ever get these darn sponsors?
Ever since the disappearance of the tobacconists, real billions (of Liras) hightailed it from the MotoGP. And we can't come to terms with it.
Okay, that's not true for everyone. Ducati red has filled every possible corner and, from what we understand, they had to say "no" to many. And, if Monster will be pairing on the fairing with the Chinese sponsor, Lenovo, we'll tell you for a fact that the non-alcoholic beer, Estrella Galicia 0.0, would have liked an important space .. that wasn't available.
Yamaha isn't that bad off either. There's Monster, Eneos, and eve Prima this year, obviously brought by the satellite team, Pramac, which also added Alpine. Definitely great work for Paolino Campinoti.
We're not even going to talk about KTM. The bikes of the Tech3 team also don Red Bull: one of those sponsors that, to be there, wants the global image. The impact is noteworthy. We don't know if they've liked the negative publicity of the Mattighofen brand lately, because of its well-known financial affair, but what's certain is that they haven't blinked an eye. And as far as we're concerned, KTM has the wings to fly above the financial turmoil.
Everything's running like clockwork for the VR46 team, thanks to the Pertamina sponsor. Not for nothing, they're the world's second largest producer of crude oil in Indonesia after Chevron Pacific in the US.
Big names, no doubt, but there really aren't that many role players in the MotoGP firmament. In fact, the Aprilia's fairing still bears the company's name, and we don't think this was a whim of Colaninno and Piaggio that, moreover, has been publicly traded since 2006 and has plenty of factories in India and Indonesia.
Like Honda also demonstrated this year - after being left by Repsol and returning to its old love, Castrol (but with the Honda name right smack in the center of the fairing) - when you're big, sponsorship has a great value: financial and also when it comes to image. All measurable in square inches.
What this means is: we're great, strong, and our brand is an advertising vehicle.
But that's precisely the problem: does motorcycling work as an advertising vehicle? At the moment, in our opinion, it doesn't: or at least, it works if the manufacturer makes every effort (this is the case with Ducati and Yamaha) in promoting itself and, therefore, also promoting its partners. Otherwis,e let's face it, motorcycling doesn't pierce the screens, except those of SKY, which really isn't much when it's greatly absent from mainstream media and news.
During these test days, in fact, there's no hype. That's what we've been saying, even with some disappointment. For example, when we learned of GULF's arrival with Aprilia Trackhouse, we imagined a livery like that of the legendary Porsche 917. Instead, the base color is a bathtub blue that looked like a prototype on the German flat-12. But, instead of the four legendary letters in center stage, we found the logo of the American racing team, while the Gulf logo appears in small print on the front fender.
Now, if the importance and power of a sponsor is measured by inches of exposure, well, we definitely have some doubt on Gulf's financial involvement.
But we're always ready, and happy to be proven wrong, when the orange shield will appear.
