RiderTua.com – Manuel Poggiali left his job as driver coach for the Gresini team, just when Marc Marquez joined the team. The coach from San Marino gave up the opportunity that many people longed for, to oversee the 8-time world champion’s debut with Ducati. Poggiali has now moved to the official Ducati team to act as Pecco’s rider coach.
Poggiali emphasized that he was not tempted to refuse or postpone a call from the official Ducati team in order to work with Marc Marquez.
Why did Gresini’s rider coach leave the team just as Marc Marquez arrived?
Manuel Poggiali explained, “Honestly, when I got the call from Gigi Dall’Igna, who I have known since my time at Aprilia, I underlined it unexpectedly, because at that time I was very focused on work. Even though I had never worked with him, someone I knows, who I respect, who everyone knows, who has charisma, it’s hard for me not to join in when he calls me.”
Poggiali is a two-time world champion and currently holds the role of rider trainer in MotoGP. Regarding the job of a rider coach he revealed that he works from the track side, he tries to see what the most important critical problems are facing their riders and to better understand what is going on.
Some riders will tell you that there are problems or difficulties or other things that are interesting to pay attention to. We will try to solve the problem. Many also come from the work we do at home. “Every rider is different, he has his own history, his own characteristics, his own difficulties and his own advantages,” added the 41-year-old rider coach.
Poggiali continued, “On a track where a rider has never won or is always in trouble, most likely it will be one of the difficult tracks. So I try to observe what is happening to try to find suggestions, ideas, different ideas to improve performance. We jointly analyze with the support of the whole team and we try to find solutions to optimize everything as much as possible.”
This year Poggiali will work with Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini. Last season, he helped Fabio di Giannantonio and Alex Marquez at Gresini. Even though Diggia was ultimately removed from the team because of Marc Marquez, with his strong performance he shone at the end of the 2023 season.
Poggiali emphasized that Fabio always had great qualities. MotoGP is the most difficult and complicated class in the world championship. The ride may be a little longer than others, but that’s part of the race. His first debut in the Premier MotoGP class apart from a few exceptions, was difficult for everyone even though he achieved pole position at the Mugello GP.
It was a journey that brought Diggia to maturity, understanding what to do on the track, managing many things, such as tires, asphalt, tracks and others. Poggiali also wished Diggia success with the VR46 team because he likes his figure. The Italian rider won his first race in Moto3 with Poggiali as coach in 2018 in Brno.
Poggiali also feels lucky enough to be able to accompany Diggia in his first success in the Moto2 middle class in the 2018 season and the Jerez GP in 2021 as well as in the MotoGP premier class at the Qatar GP last year. He has followed almost his entire career in world championships, becoming his ‘track’ reference. Manuel Poggiali has a special relationship with him, he wishes Fabio di Giannantonio all the best.
Note: After previously mentioning that Manuel Poggiali was the coach of the two riders from Gresini and Lenovo (before the Qatar series), now there is news that the Italian has only been hired for the official team (Lenovo).
– https://www.corsedimoto.com/motomondiale/motogp/motogp-poggiali-a-fianco-di-bagnaia-e-marquez-non-vedo-conflitto-dinteressi/
– https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/1045694/1/motogp-rider-coach-who-left-gresini-just-marc-marquez-was-arriving
