Gresini is a partner of QJMotor in the Moto2 World Championship, with the Chinese manufacturer contributing part of the team’s name. However, in MotoGP, Nadia Padovani’s team does not have a main sponsor – not even after the arrival of Marc Márquez.
The commercial director, Carlo Merlini, assured the website SPEEDWEEK.com that there is no absolute need to have such a partner: ‘As soon as we find the right company with the right project, they are very welcome. But what I want to make clear is that if you don’t see a main sponsor, it’s because some teams cover maybe 70 or 60 percent of the budget with the main sponsor and the rest with a handful of sponsors. We can divide it among a larger number of sponsors, but we also do well’.
The Italian guaranteed Gresini’s financial stability even without a main sponsor, considering that the current situation is better than having just one major sponsor: ‘We can have three or four more sponsors than the others, which is a much better situation from a risk point of view. We don’t depend too much on individual sponsors, the budget is very broad. Of course, some sponsors on the bike are bigger than others, but overall we lose five to a maximum of ten percent if we lose a sponsorr’.
