Some autorenewing subscriptions have failed to automatically renew. If you find you can't read subscriber articles, or think this applies to you please read this.

Suzuka 8-Hours Interview: Paolo Ciabatti - "The Plan Is A Factory Bike And MotoGP Riders At Suzuka"

By Akira Nishimura |

Japanese racing legend Yukio Kagayama, who has ridden for Suzuki for more than three decades, started collaborating with Ducati in the 2024 season. He set up and organized Ducati Team KAGAYAMA, and his rider Ryo Mizuno is taking part in the All Japan Road Race Championship with the championship-winning bike Panigale V4R.

Team Kagayama is also racing in the 45th edition of the Suzuka 8-Hours race with Mizuno, Hafizh Syahrin, and Josh Waters. And now, Paolo Ciabatti from Ducati Corse came to Suzuka on Friday to join the team. In the timed practice session, Mizuno set the second fastest time and helped their team proceed to Saturday’s Top 10 Trial superpole shootout. In the Top 10 Trial, Mizuno finished 0.118s behind YART-YAMAHA. Right after the Top10 Trial, we managed to grab an exclusive interview with Ciabatti in their team office.

Q: Ryo’s riding in the top 10 trial and your team’s performance so far this weekend is quite amazing. What do you think of your riders and Panigale V4R's performance?

Paolo Ciabatti: You know, we are very pleased with the results so far. We know that Panigale V4R with the superbike specification, like this one that we gave to Kagayama's team, is super competitive. We can see in any championship where we take part, World Superbike, American Superbike, British Superbike, also in the first rounds of Japanese Championship, the bike was showing good potential. Naturally, we needed to understand better how to use the Bridgestone tire because we never had Bridgestone on a superbike, but with the help of Bridgestone supplying us data, and the team, I think we came up with very good setup solution.

Now qualifying went very well, we missed the pole position by one tenth of a second, I think Yamaha is very strong, but Ryo Mizuno was incredibly fast, he put his best lap time in the top 10 qualifier.

Now we have to see tomorrow. Obviously, we have no experience in the Suzuka 8-Hours race. It's a tough race because it's a combination of being very fast, no mistakes, no crashes, no mistakes also from the team, and be efficient during pit stops, and reliability. So, it will be interesting for us to see. Obviously, we are also here with Team KAGAYAMA to gain experience for the future because it's no secret that Ducati riders, also from MotoGP, they would like one day to do the Suzuka 8-Hours.

So, let's see how it goes tomorrow. Hopefully, we finish the race. I think the top 5 would be my perfect result from this experience. [DUCATI Team KAGAYAMA finished fourth in the race, a lap behind the winners, Team HRC with Japan Post - DE] And then, let's see for the future. I mean, yesterday I was posting on my Instagram a picture of the riders with me, and Pecco [Bagnaia] was commenting “please do a good job and get ready for me.” He's getting married today.

Anyway, I think it's best to do it with a current rider lineup, which is very good, and then see what we need to improve for the future.

Q: Looking back so far this weekend, is this just as you expected or more than you expected?

PC: I think it's up to my best expectation. Obviously, as I said I know the result that Ryo is achieving in the Japanese Superbike Championship. And I also saw that when we came here for the test in June, we already had two test sessions and Ryo was always fastest. So, no surprise that we could be fast, it's a confirmation of what we expected as the best scenario.

Q: As you said, everyone knows the Ducati is very fast in the sprint race, but endurance race is another thing. So, what is your expectation for tomorrow's 8-hour race? Do you think a podium is possible?

Ducati
Fabio Di Giannantonio
Francesco Bagnaia
Suzuka, Japan
↑Back to top

Comments

That was a great interview. It really got the basic question of Ducati's apparently endless ambition. Winning MX races now, in year 1 of that effort is remarkable. It was also notable that the effort is connected to Ducati's sales model: And for Ducati, it's also a possibility to enlarge the sales segment to maybe a younger audience once the bike will be available middle of next year for the people to buy... . The gap between Ducati and the other factories seems to be getting larger and extra dimensional. 

I know it’s a team effort, not just one rider, and the race probably isn’t as competitive as it used it be, but it was great to see Honda win the 8 hours with help from Zarco. Good for everyone’s morale.