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We seem to hear Fausto's voice: "you see, I did it. It was all a succession of coincidences. A sign of destiny".
He would have said to me, Gresini, with that low voice of his, tilting his head to one side, showing me something in the air by pointing his index finger, as he always did when he was about to tell you something important. Something he wanted you to understand, beyond the intrinsic meaning of the fact.
We have missed Fausto's sunny smile next to Marc, his words, the enormous satisfaction we would have seen in his eyes. But we have not missed a historical fact such as Marquez, eight-time world champion, who decides to sign for a private team, even if it is full of glory and world titles. A team led by a true champion and an excellent manager who was able, over the years, to manage champions, with an iron glove on a velvet wrist, leaving them free to be themselves, while making them express one hundred percent of their potential .
When Alex, Marc's younger brother made his entry into the Gresini team official, he told everyone that he would not exchange any information with 'Magic', but he lied. The two must have talked, and the idea of this communion arose from there for a long time.
Officially, this dream will only last one year because Paolo Campinoti and Pramac, obviously guided by Ducati, were unable to obtain the promise of a longer commitment from the eight-time world champion. Nadia Padovani and Carlo Merlini were more far-sighted, because when you get married, who can say how long the marriage will last? Who can measure its duration?
At the end of 2024 Marc Marquez will be a free agent, on the market, and everyone is already fantasizing about a return to Honda or a move to KTM. But who can say that, instead, Marc might decide to stay there, in the team that welcomed him, and accepted his conditions at a particularly difficult moment in his career?
Marquez got a lot from Honda, but he gave equally a lot, not only in terms of results. And the fact that the marriage did not end with the acrimony that characterized the Rossi-HRC divorce means something. The Japanese care a lot about behaviour and while it is true that there may have been a fringe of the HRC that resented the champion's decision, in our opinion there were also those who understood. Otherwise the divorce would not have been consensual. The paths would have parted more abruptly.
In any case, it happened. Well done Nadia and well done Carlo, with your often invisible presence. We seem to see Fausto's face smiling. We missed all the familiarity, the tantrums - Gresini was a bit of an angry guy - but fortunately in his team Fausto's spirit is alive and well.
