Carlo Pernat: “nine out of ten”
Carlo Pernat was a first believer in Jean-michel Bayle’s qualities. His phone call to the Frenchman after his road racing debut at the French Grand Prix in 1992 was not the first time the two spoke. “I knew Jean-michel from when he was a motocross rider”, recalls Pernat. “I had been working at Cagiva with Jan Witteveen and back in the 1980s we wanted him on a Cagiva. We saw he was a champ in the making. We were close to a contract, but he wanted a Cagiva contract for his (older) brother, not for himself. We didn’t want that.”
A couple of years later Pernat’s and Witteveen’s eyes turned to Bayle again when he traded sand fortarmac.two-stroke top man Witteveen was now working for Aprilia; Pernat was the team’s manager. “Jan and I were sure Jean-michel would be a good choice for us. He had the style and for our sponsor Chesterfield it could be good too. The only question mark for us was: how would he deal with the completely different working of the suspension. It was not so easy to change. But he had the mind of a champion.”
From 1994 Bayle joined Max Biaggi and Jean-philippe Ruggia in the factory team on their stunning black Chesterfield Aprilias. “The team was good”, says Pernat. “In 1994 Max was already a world champion and him and Jean-michel did not have a great relationship. Honestly, I was more on Jeanmichel’s side. He was a normal nice and humble man, not playing the ‘look at me, I am famous’ card, like Max could do. Loris Reggiani spoke with Jean-michel a lot and he was enthusiastic about him.”
Pernat speaks highly of Bayle, despite him never finishing on the podium. “It was difficult, but his style was beautiful, the style of a champion. He liked every track – and a champion should not have a favourite track. Like in motocross before, Jean-michel was also a good test rider. Jan trusted him a lot. He was confident something was good if Jean-michel would say so. He was just a very complete rider.”
Pernat does not think Bayle would have achieved more had he made the switch to road racing earlier. “For him this was the perfect time to switch. He’d done all he wanted in motocross and roadracing was a goal for him. For me, considering the problems the suspension would give him, he achieved the maximum. His mind, his style, the aggression – it was all there. I’ll give him a nine out of ten. I was sorry to see him go to the 500s. I would have preferred him to stay with us.”