Factory Ducati World Superbike team boss Davide Tardozzi has confirmed that he is leaving the company.
The news comes hot on the heels of a similar shock departure by Ducati’s MotoGP team boss Livio Suppo.
Suppo is expected to move to a rival MotoGP team, with Honda the most hotly tipped, but Tardozzi - whose riders Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio finished second and third in the 2009 WSBK championship - claims he has no plans in place.
“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.”
Tardozzi won five races for Bimota on his way to third overall during the inaugural 1988 season of WSBK competition.
Later turning to team management with Ducati, he oversaw a period of unprecedented Ducati success with title victories for Carl Fogarty (4), Troy Bayliss (3), Troy Corser (1), Neil Hodgson (1) and James Toseland (1).
This year, Tardozzi faced criticism for apparently not imposing team orders on Fabrizio to help Haga’s title challenge, but it is unknown if that was a significant factor in his exit.
Haga and Fabrizio will both remain with the Ducati Xerox Team in 2010.
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Was he pushed or did he jump? After the debacle of Fabrizio taking 5 points from Nori instead of helping him win the championship, it's possible Tardozzi was shown the door by higher management. It'll be interesting to see where he "surfaces" next season!
Think he should have gone to Moto gp, think he think's that as well, he only wants to stay in racing if it's something important (gp's) he could do no more in WSB he had done it all. That nob the hurricane,wizard, wirldwind what ever he calls himself must of hurt him, see them in the paddock after the last race? think he was telling him" you just f**""d my move to the big class".........well what ever he does I'm sure it will be done very well, big loss to the red team.............. and Nori
After all the Repsol money pushed at Honda for a long time, with nothing to show I think its time for Honda to get in some names to manage the team.
Lets be honest, Alberto Puig favours Pedro and he's no race engineer!
When you see the TV interviews, you will always hear from Yamahas race engineer for Rossi and Lorenzo and the same for Ducati talking about Stoner but when was the last time you heard anyone from Repsol Honda bigging it up or talking set up or strategies!!!?
Never, because they don't have key personnel to front and direct the team, just a former rider and his favoured protege and a shed load of Spanish Fuel money!
They gotta do better and they need direction.
Never understood how Tardozzi never got the job in GPs instead of Suppo. After all, his success in WSBK has been phenominal and when Ducati announced their GP program it looked a certainty he'd get the job. And apart from a few wins and the odd podium with Capirossi in the early 990 era and then Stoners later successes the Desmo project hasn't been as good as it would appear with a succession of riders unable to handle the Duke (a list including multiple time championship runner up Gibernau, former 250 champ and perennial front runner Melandri, WSBK champions Hodgson and Bayliss (not counting the Bayliss Valencia win in 06) and former GP champ Hayden). Take Stoner of the machine and it looks useless and can a project and it's leader be called a success if only one rider out of a growing list can make it work? NO, plain and simple. Davide probably had enough when Suppo quit the GP team and the factory replaced him with Guareschi (a poor rider by anyones standards). Who wouldn't feel undervalued in his position? Good luck to Tardozzi in finding a team/factory that will appreciate his undoubted management abilities and drive to create a successful project.
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