FRANCO MORBIDELLI
2020 MotoGP world 2nd championship 3 race wins: San Marino, Teruel and Valencia
Franco Morbidelli became the first member of the VR46 Academy when his parents moved from Rome to Tavullia, so their son could learn from the master. In 2017 Morbidelli won the Moto2 title to become VR46’s first world champion, in 2018 he became the first VR46 rider in MotoGP and at September’s San Marino GP he became the first VR46 rider to win a MotoGP race.
Perhaps Rossi is biased but he says Morbidelli is now the best rider in MotoGP. The nine-times world champion may just be right, because Morbidelli won three races last season and had two DNFs that weren’t his fault, without which he might’ve won the title.
Morbidelli had a tough rookie MotoGP year on a Honda and in 2019 he was overshadowed by team-mate Fabio Quartararo at Petronas Yamaha. Living in Quartararo’s shadow affected Morbidelli but he kept his cool and kept working towards his goal at his own pace. However, he finished behind the Frenchman in the 2019 season, so Yamaha didn’t give him 2020 YZR-M1s for last season. “I was frustrated by that, it didn’t feel good, but I managed to use my anger and frustration in the right direction,” says Morbidelli, who may just be the calmest rider on the grid.
In fact he was lucky to have 2019 M1s, because the 2020 bike turned out to be a very tricky machine, so Morbidelli kept racking up the points while Rossi, Quartararo and Maverick Viñales struggled on the latest bikes. Part of his success is down to crew chief Ramon Forcada. ‘The Spanish Jeremy Burgess’ has been a Yamaha crew chief since 2008, first with Lorenzo and then with Viñales. At the end of 2018 Forcada was sacked by Viñales, who blamed him for his up-and-down results. The pair have forged a superb relationship.
“Franco is perfect – he’s a very good guy and it’s nice working with him,” says Forcada. “He tries to understand exactly what is happening with the bike and he works hard to improve his riding, so he doesn’t just ask us to improve the bike, he always tries to understand exactly where the other guys are better than him. And if there’s something we cannot fix he accepts the limitation and tries his best.” The respect is mutual.
“With Ramon we are able to make the right steps at the right times and I think we work very well together, because with him I’m able to understand what I need from the bike quite quickly.
“When I’m on the track, I’m able to be loose with the bike and I’m able to be fast generally, once I get the package how I like it. We know that the strength of the Yamaha is corner speed, so I’m able to use that to make the lap time.”
Morbidelli will stay with his 2019spec bikes in 2021, when there’s every chance that with Forcada onside he will continue to show the factory team how it’s done.
‘Franco is per‘ect ‘he’s a ‘ery goo‘ guy an‘it’s nice ‘orking ‘ith hi‘’