Gresini partners with QJMotor in the Moto2 World Championship, with the Chinese manufacturer contributing part of the team’s name. However, in MotoGP, Nadia Padovani’s team doesn’t have any title sponsor – not even after Marc Márquez’s arrival.
The commercial director, Carlo Merlini, assured 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 title sponsor, it’s because some teams cover perhaps 70 or 60% of the budget with the title sponsor and the rest with a handful of sponsors. We can split it among a larger number of sponsors, but we also do well’.
The Italian ensured 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 others, which is a much better situation from a risk point of view. We don’t rely too much on individual sponsors, the budget is very broad. Of course, some sponsors are bigger than others on the bike, but overall, we lose five to a maximum of ten percent if we lose a sponsor’.