For the 2011 season DFX Corse and Pata BRC Racing fused together become Pata Racing Team and fielded Noriyuki Haga riding an Aprilia RSV4 and finished 8th overall in the championship with four podiums.

So far the Verona based team run by Marco Borciani has yet to announce their plans for 2012, but according to superbiketv.com the team will be dropping Aprilia to return to a Ducati 1098R and will once again field Nori Haga as their rider.

Always according to the Italian website, the legendary Davide Tardozzi who was axed from BMW Motorrad at the end of 2010 due to ‘irreconcilable differences’ could come out of his forced retirement to make a return to the World Superbike paddock and replace Borciani as team manager in Pata Racing in 2012.

So far these are only rumors and not have been confirmed by Pata Racing, but the first official 2012 testing date (February 20 and 21) is in a little more than two months so we expect to hear some news before then.

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He left Ducati after almost 20 years with the strongest team in WSBK’s, saying he’s was looking for something different. The something different was supposed to be BMW Motorrad team and that lasted less than a racing season and now Davide Tardozzi is still out of job and is now thinking of retiring from paddock life.

In an exclusive interview with quanteruote.it Tardozzi once again insisted that he’ll not be heading the Yamaha Sterilgarda squad and that he’ll probably be leaving WSBK’s, “It ’s a personal choice, I still have to decide, I’m considering what to do in the near future, but I’m probably leaving.”

Does this mean that Tardozzi has burnt all his possible bridges with the Superbike world? To lose such an excellent team manager as Davide Tardozzi is a bloody shame and we bet that Troy Bayliss would agree with us.

Source | motoblog.it

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The clashing and infighting between former team manager Davide Tardozzi and Berthold Hauser on how to run BMW’s Superbike team seems to affected the BMW’s head honchos in more ways than one, because after the divorce by mutual consent just two weeks ago from Tardozzi, now Hauser has also gotten the boot from the German team and will be replaced by Bernard Gobmeier.

Gobmeier will be responsible for all BMW Motorrad Motorsport activities, including the company’s factory involvement in the Superbike World Championship, with a probable eye on an eventual move into MotoGP in 2012 when the rules allow 1000cc engines.

BMW has yet to announce who will be replacing Tardozzi. Official press release after the jump.

Continue reading: WSBK: Another head falls in BMW, Gobmeier to replace Hauser

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We already knew from Davide Tardozzi’s interview that he was splitting from BMW, but now the German team has officially confirmed the divorce, but instead of a separate press release they put it at the end of the usual rider quotes from the first day of practice at Magny-Cours, making it look like an afterthought.

BMW Motorrad Motorsport and Davide Tardozzi have agreed to part company by mutual consent with immediate effect. BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director, Berthold Hauser, says: “With his wealth of experience Davide has been a great help to us this season in his role as Team Manager. However, he and the team had different ideas regarding the structure of the team. We would like to thank Davide for his contribution to a good partnership and wish him all the best for the future.”

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The rumors were hot and heavy regarding BMW firing team manager Davide Tardozzi, but Italian website Motonline.it contacted the Italian manager yesterday to get it straight from the so called horse’s mouth regarding the situation and Tardozzi confirmed that he is infact leaving the German Superbike team.

Tardozzi who in January of this year signed a three year contract with BMW, will be leaving after less than a season with the team. Here’s what he had to say about the split.

“I’m not even going to France, it would be useless. I’m done with BMW and I have time to talk to other teams. In the first half of the season they let me work like we agreed upon and as it should be if I was to guarantee results, then things began changing, the friction started and gradually it became worse and eventually there was a break-up, it was unavoidable. Regardless of the results on the track, someone didn’t like the way I worked and with the complicity of others, tried to get me into trouble.”

Continue reading: Interview: Davide Tardozzi officially confirms split with BMW

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That Davide Tardozzi has been on collision course with Berthold Hauser, BMW’s Sporting Director, on the way the team was being managed has already been bandied around for the last couple of weeks, and the rumors had the Italian manager was heading to Yamaha Sterilgarda which was instrumental in having Marco Melandri nix the German team and sign-up with the Yamaha team, may be have reach it’s zenith.

According to Speedweek.de the BMW- Tardozzi split is so acrimonious that the German team has fired the Italian manager and banned him from the garage for final round at Magny-Cours.

To make matters even worse, the non-German crew members (mostly Italians hired by Tardozzi) have not been re-hired for next season and the German manufacturer is threatening to withhold back pay if the mechanics should decide to air out their grievances with a high profile strike.

Whether the issue will be resolved before the French round that kicks off tomorrow remains to be seen, but as we’ve seen in in GP racing, these issues usually are hurriedly resolved about 5 minutes before opening practice.

Source | motomatters.com

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The soon to be announced Marco Melandri in Yamaha Sterilgarda has surprised most of racing fans because it was generally expected that the Italian would be riding for BMW’s World Superbike squad in 2011, but the real reason may be that Davide Tardozzi could be leaving his role as team manager in BMW to take over Mario Meregalli’s place in Yamaha Sterilgarda.

Meregalli is widely tipped to be going to MotoGP to run Ben Spies side of the factory Yamaha team garage, and rejoining his former rider who took the 2009 World Superbike Championship with the Yamaha Sterilgarda squad.

BMW has heavily invested in it’s WSBK team and Davide Tardozzi was signed up by the German team last year to bring the important changes needed to improve the team who had no past racing history and the manager starting with a re-organization in the garage hiring new engineers and mechanics (mostly Italian), but in the last weeks there has been have been complaints by BMW’s head honchos questioning the lack of results by Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus.

Apparently Tardozzi wasn’t happy about his work ethics being put into discussion and instead of re-negotiating his contract with the German manufacturer it seems that he has signed up with Yamaha to run the Italian team.

Take this all with a grain a salt, because there will certainly denials, but in the land of Machiavelli, this could explain Melandri’s sudden change of heart.

Source | newnotizie.it

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Pata B&G Racing team owners Marco Borciani and Mirco Guandalini (the B&G letters correspond to their last names) are thinking of ditching the Ducati 1198’s that they currently use in the World Superbike championship for BMW’s S1000RR next season.

The team has already talked with BMW and Davide Tardozzi and it has been tentatively confirmed that Jakub Smrz will test ride the S1000RR at the Mugello on June 10th and 11th with Troy Corser.

Tardozzi recently said that the talented Czech was in his sights and what better way to judge the rider that see him perform on the German Superbike.

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The WSBK website has kindly put up this video so we can finally see how Ruben Xaus took out Noriyuki Haga during warm up practice at Phillip Island, and this fourth and final crash of the weekend resulted in Xaus pulling out of the first round.

While the latest rumors are saying that Xaus may lose his ride, BMW’s team manager Davide Tardozzi hasn’t given up on his Spanish rider and will be spending two days in Spain this week, talking to a dejected Xaus in order to help him regain his confidence:

“He has completely lost confidence and what I want is to to make him regain it. It might take a few races to see the Ruben we’re used to, but we’re counting on it. We know he’s a fast rider, aggressive, a quality rider. In 2008, a little more than a year ago, he won at Misano with a privateer Ducati. We want to bring him back to that level.”

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Last Friday at the BMW Group Classic in Munich, Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport officially launched its second season in the FIM Superbike World Championship with Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus who are ready to begin the 2010 season that takes of at Phillip Island February 28th.

In the presence of Infront Motor Sports CEO Paolo Flammini, Superbike World Championship Director Paolo Ciabatti and other guests, Corser and Xaus arrived on stage, riding their BMW S 1000 RR bikes.

Director BMW Motorrad Motorsport Berthold Hauser has ambitious goals: “Our goal is to close the gap to the leading teams. We are aiming to finish in the top five as regularly as possible and pick up our first podium. That’s the ambitious aim we have set ourselves for our second year in what is an extremely challenging World Championship. However, we are well aware that our competitors have not been standing still either. The Superbike World Championship brings us up against six motorcycle manufacturers who have established themselves on the race track. You can set yourself aims in sport and make plans to achieve them, but you cannot dictate results – those have to be earned out on the track. Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport is working flat out to make this possible.”

Davide Tardozzi, former Ducati team manager will head up team management and operational control at the race tracks. Rainer Bäumel will continue as Head of Overall Project Management and Project Management Engineering, and Tardozzi has been given carte blanche by the German company.

Continue reading: BMW 2010 Team Launch

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Just before Christmas we told you that former Ducati Xerox team manager Davide Tardozzi was heading to BMW, officially there’s no press release yet, but Tardozzi, speaking with Italian website gpone.com has confirmed that he will be infact in the WSBK paddock and manage the BMW team this year.

Here’s what Tardozzi had to say about his upcoming challenge and he’s very matter of fact about the work and the goals that he set out and wants to obtain with WSBK team:

“It won’t be our objective to win this year, but in 2010 we’ll try to do what Aprilia did in 2009. A couple of podiums and maybe a win so we can be ready to fight for the title in 2011.”

BMW has tied up the Italian manager for the next three years.

“BMW has been really great. They’ve given me the opportunity to move on at the end of 2010 if I want to, but they’ve also given me the option to stay on for another two years.”

Judging by his words Tardozzi is also looking towards the future and would like to run a MotoGP team one day and reading between the lines it looks like he wasn’t asked to replace Livio Suppo in Marlboro Ducati:

“In MotoGP? Why not? To be sincere it kind of upset me that … so if I have the opportunity… the new MotoGP rules will have 1000cc engine with a maximum bore of 81mm and the S1000 RR has 80. The biggest in production.”

Continue reading: WSBK: Tardozzi confirms BMW Move and Tips Championship between Ducati and Aprilia

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The rumors were circulating for several weeks, but Italian website Motosprint has now former Ducati Xerox manager Davide Tardozzi almost signed up with WSBK’s official BMW team.

Tardozzi left Ducati after almost twenty years of service and eight Riders’ Championships, first as a team manager then as Ducati’s SBK project manager, stated that he left the team because he was seeking new personal challenges and will find it in the highly ambitious German Superbike team in it’s second year of world racing,

No official press release yet, but Tardozzi is apparently hard at at work and many are convinced that he’s behind Ducati’s tech and track engineer Max Bertolini,who worked with rider Michel Fabrizio for the past two years, defection to BMW.

Tardozzi will find in BMW two riders he already knows and managed when he was in Ducati, Troy Corser who won the 1996 title with Ducati and Ruben Xaus.

We’ll see Tardozzi in the BMW garage during the official tests at Portimao, January 22th-24th.

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