Davide Tardozzi, for many years the guiding hand behind the success of the Ducati WSBK team, recently announced that he was stepping down from the position of Team Manager. Many expected that he would go into semi-retirement for a while after devoting many years to the team. Others expected that he would join former Xerox Team luminaries, Paolo Cirabatti and the team’s former PR man, Julian Thomas at their new home, FG Sport, the actual organisers of the WSBK.
But Tardozzi has stunned everyone with his announcement this morning that he will be joining the BMW WSBK Team for 2010, as Team Manager!!
This move will reunite him with two of his former riders in the Ducati squad, Australia’s Troy Corser and Germany’s Reuben Xaus. Now it is known that the relationship between Corser and Tardozzi was not one of the best in the paddock so it will be interesting to see how things settle once Tardozzi arrives. However, his relationship with the irrepressible Xaus was much closer, Tardozzi being openly acknowledged as Xaus’s mentor and guide.
Quite how this will work out in practice is anyone’s guess. On the surface it seems unlikely that Tardozzi could openly favour Xaus over Corser, given Corser’s seniority and position as the acknowledged #1 rider, but stranger things have happened. Xaus will find Tardozzi a hard task master unless he stops crashing. Neither BMW or the hard-talking Italian will tolerate that for too long.
Given Corser’s own admission that he’s closer to the end of his career than he is to its start, and his burning desire to win one more title before he retires, thus becoming the only WSBK rider to have won three titles with three different manufacturers, it is to be hoped that Tardozzi will put former differences between them behind him and focus on helping Troy achieve his goal.
Time will tell.