Today’s satellite teams are very different from what they were, for the most part, a few years ago and many even receive perfectly up-to-date factory bikes and are closely supported by the manufacturers. Pramac Racing, which won the World Championship in 2024 with Jorge Martín, is an example of this, something that Lucio Cecchinello was pleased to see, addressing why the support is different today.
The head of LCR, Honda’s satellite team, was asked by GPOne how he saw Pramac, with Martín, winning in 2024, and whether that was good for the atmosphere in the paddock itself, since a satellite ended up winning the title and not a factory team, to which he replied: ‘It looks extremely good from the point of view of a satellite team’.
He went on to explain why this is, in part, more likely to happen today, since manufacturers are increasingly relying on satellite teams to improve: ‘Obviously, it may seem a bit strange from the outside, but nowadays there’s such a working system that the technologies to be applied are so exasperated and difficult to understand and select, that a team with two factory drivers can’t carry out the development needed to improve on their own. So the factory teams have realized that they have to make use of the satellite teams and provide them with the same material, in order to collect more data, have more precise information, and not risk going down the wrong path’.
Ducati even had eight riders on the grid, with half of them having factory equipment, and that was essential for success, he believes:
– The fact that Ducati has become so competitive, I think it’s also because they’ve worked with so many teams and so many riders, collecting a lot of data. And so they found themselves in a strange situation.