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Tardozzi’s Departure Confirmed in Dark Day for Ducati

jan2407tardozzi999isdead thumb Tardozzis Departure Confirmed in Dark Day for DucatiFollowing news of Livio Suppos’ departure as Ducati MotoGP Project Director, the news that Davide Tardozzi will step down from his role as Ducati World Superbike Team Manager comes as another blow for the Italian company. Tardozzi has been instrumental in the Ducati factory World Superbike success in recent years and leaves a gaping whole in the factory team.

Unlike Suppo who is moving to Honda Racing Corporation (HRC), Tardozzi does not have another role to move to and cites lack of motivation as the driver of his resignation.

“It was a painful decision. You cannot leave a company with whom you have worked exceptionally for almost 20 years without feeling regret,” Tardozzi told GPone.com. “I was losing motivation and therefore thought it appropriate to notify Ducati of my decision in time to prepare my replacement before the new season. “I will remain in racing only if I am offered something important. And so far nothing has come up. Otherwise I will get on with other activities outside of motorcycling. But racing is still my world.”

link: Crash.net

Tardozzi was an accomplished racer himself, almost winning the inaugural World Superbike championship on a Yamaha powered Bimota YB4 (he crashed out in the warm-up lap of the final round of the 1988 series and ultimately finished 3rd. American Fred Merkel won).

More importantly he has been the force behind Ducati dominance in the championship in recent times overseeing title success with Carl Fogarty, Troy Bayliss, Troy Corser, Neil Hodgson and James Toseland.

Ducati News Today has criticized the Ducati Strategy on Team orders this season that saw Tardozzi’s protege, Michel Fabrizio, take points away from Noriyuki Haga which contributed to his failure to win the title this year. It is not known whether the lack of team orders contributed to Tardozzi’s departure.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Ducati Company, World SBK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Tardozzi’s Departure Confirmed in Dark Day for Ducati”

  1. Team order or not, Ben would have won the championship.

  2. No-one knows what would have happened if Haga had entered the final round 15 points in the lead instead of 10. However in that case even double win by Spies would not have given him the title

  3. What’s a ‘himslef’??

  4. @Monster . You mean to tell you don’t know? :) Corrected now, thanks for catching it for me.