Brian Gillen

MV Agusta

At MV Agusta we’ve decided to go racing as part of a bigger plan. We did race in 2013 in world supersport with the ParkinGo team, but at the time we didn’t want a full factory team. We were focussing on developing our production line at the time, and didn’t want to take anything away from it, so that squad was perfect for the purpose. The F3 had a good year, a development season. It went well with some decent results, although we did suffer with lack of data at times.

For 2014 that team wasn’t in the position to expand to superbike as well as supersport. We wanted a full specification superbike and two full-factory supersport bikes on the grid, the superbike being in development much like the F3 last season, to be ready for 2015. We were aware that the rules were going to change, so to run with the Evo class in WSB meant we would not have been able to do any worthwhile motorcycle development at all on the F4RR. If we had gone Evo, we’d also have had to throw away 90 percent of all the work we did this season and start again.

I think in the three races prior to Portimao we have shown the potential of the F4RR. Our rider Claudio Corti has got in front of the BMW and Kawasaki Evo bikes, which have already been developed on the racetrack. We’ve also got in front of the Bimota, which is a new frame but with a BMW engine and run by a very good team. And we’ve beaten Canepa on the Evo Ducati, so we’ve done pretty good work, even with some teething issues.

When we began looking for a partner for 2014 we went with the Yacknich squad for a few reasons. We’d run the WSB bike from their outfit while they took care of supersport, and some of our commercial concerns in Russia. However, with the changes happening at MV and our internal five-year plan, we decided we wanted full control of our racing activities. For our own reasons, we wanted to control each aspect and we did that just prior to Misano, where Jules took his second win of the year.

When we took MV from HarleyDavidson a few years ago, our production has grown first by 129 per cent, then 39 per cent and then another 28 per cent in 2014. In a time when the market is contracting, we are expanding with strong growth and want that reflected in our racing program. Winning races doesn’t hurt, either!

In 2015 we will continue with factory supersport, but our WSB effort be have full focus, likely with two riders. Who, we’re not exactly sure yet. We don’t have to be drawn on a decision just yet, we’ve been approached by many riders and teams for next year, there’s been a tremendous amount of interest. We will be expanding our support to national series like BSB too; it has to be with the right teams, of course, but the idea is to grow the racing activities from a strong base in WSB.