Roberto Locatelli’s second spell

After his retirement from competitive racing, former 125cc World Champion Roberto Locatelli has decided to continue his involvement with motorcycle racing in a new capacity. Starting this season the Italian will be the new sporting coordinator and technical chief for the Junior GP team, and last week at the Circuit de Catalunya Locatelli was present in his new role.

“I must say thank you to Giampiero Sacchi, of Junior GP, and Paolo Sesti from the Italian Motorcycling Federation, for thinking of me for this new role as sporting coordinator for these talented young Italians,” Locatelli told motogp.com. “This new experience will allow me to continue in motorcycling and to help young riders confront any problems that arise during their learning process.”

“I can help with aspects such as visualising track layout, riding lines and even pointing out points of the track that have a problematic surface, for example. In other words I will use my experience as a rider on tracks from around the world and share it with my riders in team meetings before every race. I probably won’t need to teach them how to ride a bike, because they simply don’t need that.”

The riders who will benefit from Locatelli’s wisdom will be Alessandro Tonucci, Luigi Morciano, Armando Pontone and Giovanni Bonati. On the prospects of these promising young talents, Locatelli said: “They are all young riders and have great hunger to discover the experiences involved with Grand Prix motorcycles. Observing them, I see the same principles from my early career and I’m very happy to be able to help them.”

Discussing his own decision to finally hang up his racing leathers, Locatelli added: “It was difficult, you never want to stop. But I know that with maturity you must make space for those who are younger. I took this decision calmly, but admit that I had planned to race for one more year in Moto2.”

Locatelli will be engaged with his Junior GP team in the Italian Championship and a single European Championship race, and he will return to the World Championship paddock too as some of his riders will compete as wildcards at Mugello and Misano, and possibly at other Grands Prix at European circuits.