Alex Briggs: golfer, pineapple grower and Champion mechanic

The MotoGP™ Podcast team chat to Valentino Rossi’s long-serving mechanic Alex Briggs on this week’s show

This week on Last On The Brakes the team sit down with the inimitable Aussie Alex Briggs, known to most as Valentino Rossi’s long-serving mechanic. But, as you’ll learn, Briggs is so much more than just a mechanic to a nine-time World Champion – and Mick Doohan before that. From bus to motorcycle mechanic, working with a superstar, travelling the world and so much more, this week’s MotoGP™ Podcast is a proper treat.

Favourite wins with any rider, the scariest animal he’s found lurking at home, favourite circuit, what’s the crazier place to visit – Misano or Mugello? And true/false stereotypes about Australians… This and plenty of other topics are answered by Briggs, and the quote below is a snippet from the episode where he recalls Rossi’s maiden victory with Yamaha in South Africa.  

“For me the best one is Welkom, with Valentino,” comments Briggs, explaining what his favourite race win is. “When he rode a Yamaha for the first time. That’s the greatest for me because I knew the whole background, how we got there and all of that. With Mick Doohan, it’s almost like it’s not as fresh in my memory anymore but I remember in Brno when he won the championship, that was my first championship but I was still a kid then. We went to the nightclub afterwards… you should hear some of the stories but that’s for another time!

 “But still, Welkom. The bike was ok, but Valentino made the difference. He wanted to win that so badly, and so did Max because Max had been saying if ‘I only had a Honda, I could win’. All that sort of stuff. So it came down to a lot of pride in that race, and it was one of Max’s best races too in my opinion – although he’d disagree, I’m sure. Just seeing Valentino ride with a bike that was good but not great. We’d done a lot of work to get to that point, and he just made the difference. All that year we had issues but he kept making the difference. That race is the one. And the party after that, oh man…”

You’ll have to listen to the Podcast to find out what the celebrations were like after that victory. Head across to your prefered platform – Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Acast – to pass some quarantine time listening to find out what it’s like being Rossi’s mechanic.

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