Welcome back to the Pit Talk podcast sponsored by Shannon's Insurance.

In this special episode, Matt Clayton sits down with a prely erasing CEO, Massimo Rivla to talk all things a Moto GP, a Prillius Rise, Liberty Media's takeover, and of course Formula one For those who don't know, Masimo has a four wheel background before he came to two wheels, so Matt dived into the archives to talk about that, but also the crossovers between the two and four wheel racing, evolution of a previous project, and what the future of Moto GP could look like under the new ownership.

So tune in for this exclusive interview with Massimo Rivler.

We're here with a Prilli erasing CEO, Massimo Rivla.

Massima, thank you for joining us.

Firstly, you we're speaking to you before Australia you come here.

Second in the Constructors Champion.

Good season for the team, Maybe the story of how you got to this has been a little bit different than you expected.

How do you sum up the year because results it's been good.

I sum up that the expectations were much higher than that at the beginning of the season.

But overall I would say that we should be happy about what was done with what we had at the Mona.

So how we faced the problem and we took we transformed the problem in opportunities.

So happy the way that the company reacted.

I'm very very happy about the growth of Markopki.

I think he showed that we knew that it was super fast in terms of talent and natural speed, but we did know him as a deep worker and it was really good to see him growing together with us as with the right altitude, you know, that is something that is quite important for me and I think it's the one of the key to growth to be to get the right attitude, to to to manage to analyze really even in a tough moment, the things that are working well and to modify what is not working.

So it was for me quite a I don't want to say a surpriser, but it was a very good confirmation that for sure Marco is one of the guy that have a good margin to growth together with us.

Obviously we are missing at the World champion, so who knows what we could have done with the two riders like that, but you know, we cannot come back, so better to look forward than having the best recovery for organ and hopefully I'm really looking forward to see Horgan spank next year to start again, but we didn't start this year, and having him working on the bike and not just getting they said that.

I don't want to say the panic, but you know, with this kind of format whereas we can you have one session and then you're going to qualifying best on Friday already, so it's difficult to work for yourself to understand the bike.

You just look at the stop watch when the laptime, and so we need him.

The most important day I think this year with Orgy was the testing mission because he had one day to was say, okay, let's see how do I feel an ergonomic point of view, things to understand on the bike and in my alledge, but my allege doing properly for himself to understand the bank.

I do want to come back to Johei, but you're talking about Bess before.

I remember when you signed him in twenty four you said we hope we get the twenty twenty three Bears and not the twenty twenty four Bears.

Because the twenty twenty three Bears was so good.

I would argue you've actually got a different base than twenty three and twenty four because he's had to become a lead now and leader in a factory situation.

It's, you know, been a big year of growth for him.

Yes, he did.

I think this one is better than a twenty three one mm.

I think he still have a margin.

And he became a leader also because we were lacking on the other side of the of the garage because of Orgy was missing.

I have to say that Orgo was replaced by Isava and Sava did a great job to the helping marketing development the bike because he was sort of scrubbing many things that then with passed to Mark and it worked at the end.

Maybe you just see Sava on the lap times and you see most of the time on the bottom part of the classification, but it's not doing the job that is the Marco is doing.

So we needed to do also to say him for the job that he has done.

He was an opportunity for him to do manors again here in Melbourne and in Sepanga.

He will he will raise and we will use him to test of your stuff and at the end the yeah, coming back to Marco, he became the leader and This makes things even more interesting when will be back, because I'm sure that wants to be adder, so it will be a nice.

Fake the Jo Hay story.

This for so much of this year, it was like a hot story.

It was a very very hot story every single race weekend.

It's a different job for you as a leader to have to manage that because you're responsible for the writers and the entire team.

For you, this is not something you can practice for as a leader as a CEO.

So how was that for you?

Because you had to hold the line, but you also had to make Wohey feel that he was wanted and you put an arm around his shoulder and make him want to come back.

I think that, yeah, that's not training to for what happened, especially this year, are quite quite stranger.

But in a way, I I really understand what happened in in his mind because if you know him, you know, you start knowing him a bit more deeply during during the season and you understand that it is someone super active.

So the way he's thinking is super faster, so he's always overthinking what I'm gonna do?

What to do?

Now?

What they have to do is it's something that is okay they come, you know sometimes, but it's like that, and I can't imagine a guy like that stopped on a on a bed, on on an hospital thinking about what is going to be my future.

Maybe I crash, maybe this bike is not for me.

I was so start losing the trust and the confidence in himself I can do things.

So it makes absolutely sense.

So obviously, then at the same time, I get opportunities from the bigger manufacturers with big offer and it's fine.

I totally understand.

I put myself in issues and I was wondering if I would have done the same from It's difficult because I'm not so superactive, you know, in the terms of overthinking, but for many other things I am.

I'm not the guy that is always I'm the guy that is always unsatisfactory, you know, not everything a result.

So I'm a bit of opinion else in a way.

So I understand that I can be like that.

So at the same time, we did a bigger force to have him.

We wanted him.

We choose him because we have the opportunity.

And when we were Mujel last year, I couldn't believe that we signed organ It really was, I mean, super happy, and I was convinced that he would have become the number one on the grid.

So and I thought, having Marco beside the Organ, I think Marco can go up to speed with someone like Organ.

That is the sort of you know he has got that last year we saw and not just last year in his career.

Yes, that he has that kind of momb so super lap last year here I think he did.

He gave more than a second to the second in in a single lap.

So when you have someone like that and you have another super fast rider the other one, I'm sure that he will learn.

Now we will find ourselves in the opposite condition with the super fast that now is the leader and the champion that then needs to learn from the current reader.

And I'm sure that the champion will have to be So I think we are going to have awfully a bit more relaxed season in a way, but at the same time a difficult season to manage two riders that wants to win.

That is the target.

Now we're also a Formula one podcast as well as a Moto GP podcast.

You have ties in Formula one, I have ties in Formula one.

I wanted to ask you about Liberty coming in with Moto GP because you know, you would obviously see what's going on in Formula one and how the store sport has just grown so much.

Knowing what you know about how that sport works, and what's something like Liberty could do for Moto GP.

Where do you see this going?

Because it seems like good news, but do Moto GP fans really understand what might be coming.

So, first of all, I think Liberty and Estate if a deli great job.

Obviously it's not mean to say it's the numbers are Second, I don't think that we have to do a sort of copy and paste because we have different culture and in this tourist worlder there are things that maybe cannot work if done in the same way that are done in in Formula one.

I think that this sport in particular gets a bit more of deep passion.

So to live there is we can to leave the bike.

I mean, I'm a biker and I really you know, when I take my bike is something so special while I'm riding on track or off track?

I feel, yeah, really it's something that it's difficult to describe.

What the leady managed to do.

I think in the fun was first of all, to get the audience of people that normally were not watching we're not watching Formula One because they didn't really care, they didn't even know for no one.

They managed to get young people, they managed to get girls, they managed to get they managed to transform Formula One in a sort of cool brand that is cool to attend.

The event here is, let's see racing is a bit different.

It can I think this can be also a very good event.

I think we need to show everybody that our riders are not just our riders, but all the riders I MotoGP are superheroes and we need to describe them in a deep way.

What they are doing.

All there is they take every single corner.

I was watching the race of last year here and I saw the sprint where Maverick and Best crash at Turuan.

It was impressive, and the day after they were both of the Green Racing.

It's something that you said, those guys are crazy totally.

So I think there are huge stories behind them.

I think that the behind the scene of MotoGP is something cool as the behind the scene of Formula One.

Maybe with less money, less business, but it doesn't mean that necessarily if there are less money around it is worst I think here more than in F one.

You can you can.

That is also the good aspect for us as a prillier to you can win even if you don't have I mean, if you think about progressing sell sixty thousand and two winks in the war and it's part of a group PRG group that is selling less than five hundred thousand bikes on the eight millions sorry, eighteen millions.

Yes, so obviously we are speaking about different entities.

But a prillia can be onder and this is something that in the in F one it's a bit more difficult because the what you can find here is the human factor have a stronger value, a bigger percentage, not just from the right point of view, but also from the team point of view, manufacturer point of view.

In motor GP, good ideas maybe can work better, or good management can work can have can mean more performance.

So there are a few things that that are quite interesting in a world that there can be a big motivation from a new guy that wants to study something around a motorbike, or engineering or mechanics or even management that or marketing.

I'm sure here there will be a growth on term of marketing commercial communication in the next three years also thanks to Liberty.

I'm sure Liberty will push Thatta.

That can be something that the young generation can appreciate a lot.

One final question for you.

We were talking before about Formula One and you're working for Australians in the past.

Now, if I'm correct, I think you started in two thousand and one with Polestar.

Is it correctly, Yeah, post we started, I started in ninety eight and then in two thousand and one Paula join the team.

So tell us about that first Australian Grand Prix because if I remember rightly, I don't think I remember.

I don't think the car had run in a straight line before Melbourne.

So no, that was two thousand and one.

That was two thousand and one.

Yeah, that was the first time we put the car together and it was on track and we had two riders.

One was tars Marcus, yes, that raced for a Minard in ninety seven, and the other one was a kid called.

So whatever happened to him, Huh.

Frando was straight away unbelievable, incredible, were really incredible.

The car was it was not too bad considering what we had to make the car, The engine was downpowered a lot compared to the top one.

But I tell you that the first proper time we raced with Pauli here in two thousand and two, remember well yeah we had we were We raced with Mark Webber.

I think Mark, now we will be in Austin for one with an oscar and he did P five and the other rider was Alex Junk.

Yes that he finished P seven but at the time only the first six car got all the points.

But can imagine an Australian owner with the smallest team in the PUDOC going to Australias on race and scoring points with the Australian rider driver was I mean people were crying, We were crying, but it was I would never and I will never forget.

Also Mark was quite special and was quite quite super fast.

Probably still the greatest memory in Australian Formula one history outside that event.

For me personally, absolutely yes, but I don't know, maybe for the Australians hopefully too.

But also it's good that in countries like Australia or US the name of that team Minardi was.

You know, we had the fun clubs in San Francisco, in in Montreal, in you know Minardi.

We were when the company was sold to Red Buller.

We were ninety one in the old company doing Formulajuan.

Yeah, and we were also doing the gearbox, so we were just buying the engine.

So it was I mean, those ninety guys, you know, we have to do many things.

And it was a sort of fantastic gym for me Osini because I'm not a technical guy.

I'm not an engineer.

I'm coming from He did the University economy.

But you need to learn many, many things when you are so much in the ship.

But it was such a good experience.

Gian Carlo Minardi, the founder, was still a great guy.

I'm still in contact with him.

And Paul was somewhat quite He was quite a clever guy.

Yeah, I'm sure he's still quite a good He's still quite a clever guy.

He was a force of nature, and yeah, you had the University of Life.

Working for But he invented two sitter.

Yes, he took a tyroll.

He cut the fuel tank by twenty five centimeters, not much.

He made a bit longer car with the same chassis he put together and they did something maybe with dangerous, but the experience itself, you did consider you really get the feeling of a Formula one car at the time, obviously with the proper sound was still aviator and not at the current.

That is something that I don't like at all about.

Form Yeah, you and lots of other people massive.

I could talk post on our stories with you all day, but we'll get on with you we can.

Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.

Thank you, my pleasure, Thank you, Pleasure Pleasure.

Thanks