Over the weekend live at the Assen MotoGP we spoke to Daniele Romagnoli, former team-manager of Jorge Lorenzo and current crew chief for the Tech 3 Moto2 team. As part of our behind the scenes look at the MotoGP, we talked about how he’s finding life in what he describes as the ‘difficult’ world of Moto2.
We discussed the technical aspects of Moto2 and what it’s like to have an image in this class. Tech 3 is a team that enjoys more financial backing than other’s in Moto2; it has its own box and doesn’t have to deal with the campervan land of the paddock. They even have umbrella girls to which Romagnoli replied by saying that a brolly girl doesn’t even cost him half a tyre and that he could hardly send out a hairy legged mechanic onto the grid. Read our interesting interview below.
You’ve said that Moto2 is difficult, what’s the main difference between Moto2 and MotoGP?
Here it’s another world. It’s especially difficult from a financial and economic aspect. The resources are inferior to the MotoGP and so you have to manage with the resources you’ve got. And then it’s obvious that with the MotoGP you have a company behind you that builds the bike, whether it be Yamaha or Honda or whoever. There are other bike builders but some teams, like ours, have to build their own bikes: designing it, building it, following a philosophy. But then it’s a challenge and I like playing.

Daniele Romagnoli, Jorge Lorenzo’s ex-team manager has found a home in Herve Poncharal’s Moto2 team, Tech3.
Romagnoli made the shock announcement at the Sepang GP citing that he wanted to return to the more technical aspects in a team.
The French Manager has hired 250cc rider Raffaele DeRosa (and Marco Simoncelli’s close friend) and will see the return to racing of Yuki Takahashi, who was axed from Scot Racing’s MotoGP team in favour of Gabor Talmacsi.
Romagnoli will crew chief for DeRosa, while Gary Reynders, the apple of discord between Colin Edwards and James Toseland has been moved to the Moto2 team to make room for Ben Spies crew chief, Tom Houseword.
Houseworth has been with Spies since his days in Yoshimura Suzuki (AMA) and followed the Amercian rider to WSBK’s and now in MotoGP. Spies has also brought to Tech3 his mechanic Gregory Wood.
Photo by Motogp.com

When we heard that Daniele Romagnoli would be leaving his role as Jorge Lorenzo’s team manager at the end of this season, we also heard that several other team members were preparing to leave as well.
The offical reasons for this sort of exodus is unkown, but rumors have it there’ve been problems with Romagnoli’s way of running the garage and personality clashes with Lorenzo’s crewchief Ramon Forcada.
Two electronics engineers, Andrea Zugna e Cristian Battaglia who’ve been important in the development of the elettronics on the M1 have signed up with Honda HRC. The hiring of these two specialists, who’ve always followed Magneti Marelli electronics could mean that Honda may be thinking of switching to a Marelli electronics package next year.
Max Temporali is a journalist/test rider who does the technical comment for MotoGP on Mediaset’s Premium digital channel, and reporting from Phillip Island, has added more fuel on the reasons why Daniele Romagnoli has decided to leave his position as a team manager.
According to Temporali, the situation in Jorge Lorenzo’s side of the garage has become explosive over the last couple of races with clashes between crew chief Ramon Forcada and his team against Romagnoli’s method of running the garage.
The situation had become so severe that two mechanics and one technician have decided to quit the team and will be switching to Honda HRC, who jumped at the change of having winning Yamaha personnel and has offered them two year contracts, when pit personnel contracts are renewed yearly.
Continue reading: Italian Rumors on the Romagnoli and Rossi/Ducati Stories

Daniele Romagnoli, the Fiat Yamaha team manager that runs the Jorge Lorenzo side of the garage will be leaving the team at the end of this season.
This bombshell while Jorge Lorenzo is fighting for the championship title has left everyone flabbergasted, and for a couple of hours in the paddock there were rumors that Romagnoli would not be showing up for the last two rounds, but Lin Jarvis has defused the situation putting the rumors to rest.
The Italian team manager speaking to GPone at Phillip Island explained his reasons for wanting to leave:
“I used to work as a telemetry analyst, and I still have this passion to work inside the garage. I appreciated the opportunity that Yamaha offered me and I accepted it. It’s been a fantastic experience, but I want to to something different that at the present I can’t do in Yamaha because Jorge already has his crew chief Ramon Forcada, so I’ve decided to leave at the end of the season.”
Jorge Lorenzo was asked about the situation replied: “I’ve heard about this decision, but this won’t change the situation inside the team, and for me, personally this isn’t a problem.”
Romagnoli is now on the market for a job more to his liking, and if other rumors that we heard at the Estoril GP are correct, Peter Benson who crew chief’s for Andrea Dovizioso, is to be let go at the end of this season by Honda HRC, and he too will be looking for a new job.
Check out the video with Jorge Lorenzo’s and Casey Stoner’s highsides and the final minutes of yesterday’s qualifying session at Laguna Seca.
According to Lorenzo’s crew chief Ramon Forcada, Yamaha team manager Daniele Romagnoli is not present due to family problems, Lorenzo will decide to race only after assessing his physical condition during today’s warm up practice.
Double interview with Fiat Yamaha team managers Davide Brivio and Daniele Romagnoli. Strange video, questions in english and answers in Italian.
Q: What’s your best memory of 2008?
Brivio: The race at Laguna Seca. No doubt.
Romagnoli: Estoril, the first time Jorge won and the first time I went on the podium with him.
Q: And your worst?
Romagnoli: Jorge’s fall during the practice in Barcelona, and the first race I saw myself on TV.
Brivio: Assen. The first lap, when Valentino fell.

Yamaha team manager Daniele Romagnoli has decided that the wall that divides the Yamaha factory team is a good idea and that even Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo will benefit from it.
The partition was placed in 2008 when Valentino Rossi switched over to Bridgestone tires while team mate Lorenzo was on Michelins and both tire manufacturers requested it to protect intellectual property and the swapping of key information.
With the introduction of the single tyre rule and with the entire grid will be running Bridgestone tires, and the wall is no longer necessity and should come down, however reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi has convinced the head honchos in Yamaha that the wall should stay up.