On Sunday morning at the MotoGP Austrian GP, Ducati team manager Davide Tardozzi caught an Aprilia mechanic «spying» and capturing images of Ducati bikes – a small act of espionage that breaks trust between teams. Ducati expects that the Noale manufacturer will dismiss the mechanic involved, who allegedly acted without informing the directors.
Tardozzi told SPEEDWEEK.com: ‘It wasn’t just the VR46 Ducati. This person also scanned the Yamaha or Pramac bikes. People also saw him at VR46 and filmed him. He walked around all the bikes with an iPad – sometimes as close as ten centimeters and right in front of everyone. He did this without informing the directors. Aprilia says they knew nothing about it. We also have a video of him scanning the Yamaha M1’.
According to the Italian, there are images of the Aprilia mechanic’s iPad screen, so it is clear what he was doing. He emphasized that he has nothing against the leadership of the rival team: ‘Romano Albesiano had no idea about the action. I hope they don’t fire him. The top management knew nothing. Romano was also very upset. Romano is not so stupid as to send someone in an Aprilia t-shirt to do scans’.
Aprilia has already apologized for the incident, and regarding the mechanic involved, Tardozzi explained: ‘I don’t know the person, I’ve never seen him. Maybe he’s from the aerodynamics department. He probably wanted to be clever, but he’s probably the biggest idiot! I told him he was using something that wasn’t allowed. He didn’t say a word, didn’t show any emotion. For me, the matter is closed. Aprilia apologized. But it’s not fair’.