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By Riccardo Tafà| Posted June 14, 2015 | In MotoGP, Motor Racing, Motorsports
With his fourth win in a row, Jorge Lorenzo‘s winning streak keeps continuing. The Movistar Yamaha rider started from the third place on the grid and benefited from one of his usually good starts. With Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Repsol Honda rider Marc Márquez behind him, Lorenzo tried to build up his lead as fast as possible.
He managed to do so, but behind him things got difficult. LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow crashed out of the race within the first lap. The brit suffered from the exact same crash in the last two races, so his bad luck kept on.
Márquez, who had started from fourth place, surely wanted to secure his second win of the season in front of his home crowd, so the spaniard kept pushing. Unfortunately he made a mistake, braking way too late, went into the gravel and fell. With his third time leaving a race without any points, Márquez is only fifth in the overall standings behind both factory Yamahas and Ducatis.
Looking at the front, nobody was able to catch up to Lorenzo. Dovizioso tried to do so, but sadly the Ducati rider made a mistake with 19 laps to go and had to give up on the race as well. This opened up the gap to Lorenzo, but gave his teammate Valentino Rossi the chance for another podium position.
Rossi had started from seventh place and recouped two slots right away after the start. Just as he did at all the other races this season, the italian kept pushing his M1 and quickly moved up the scale. Unfortunately for Rossi and his many fans, it wasn’t enough to catch Lorenzo, who had won the race with a +0,885 gap on Rossi.
Márquez’s teammate Dani Pedrosa joint the Yamaha duo on the podium for the first time this season. Pedrosa struggled at the beginning of the race. Starting as sixth he fell back several places down to tenth place, but made his way up through the whole race distance of 25 laps. Surely he benefited from riders in front of him crashing out, but since Pedrosa managed to secure his place, it seems his arm-pump surgery went well and he’s not in too much pain.
Left the only rider for the Ducati factory Team, Andrea Iannone saved a fourth place for the ever-increasing italian team. Iannone had to go to Q1 on saturday, but even if the italian could make it into the second qualifying, he still ended it in 12th place. Keeping that and Dovizioso’s crash in mind, a fourth place surely is a good result for him and his team.
A result that could have been Bradley Smith‘s as well, since the Tech3 rider had been in front of Iannone, but couldn’t fight back against the power of the Desmosedici. Smith tried anyway, but ultimately had to go with a still very good fifth place.
Ecstar Suzuki rider Maverick Viñales finished the race as sixth. Coming from second on the grid, it surely wasn’t what the MotoGP rookie expected, but since he finished all of his premiere class races in the Top Ten, it proves that there’s definitely more to come from the young spaniard.
With Marc VDS rider Scott Redding following Viñales in seventh place, Forward Yamaha rider Stefan Bradl received his until now best result of the season. With his eighth place the german ended the race as the best open class rider in the Catalunya Grand Prix, followed by Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) in ninth place and Aprilia rider Álvaro Bautista completing the Top Ten.
Alongside Crutchlow, Márquez and Andrea Dovizioso, also Tech3 rider Pol Espargaró and his brother, Ecstar Suzuki pilot Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia’s Marco Melandri, Pramac rider Yonny Hernández and Nicky Hayden (Aspar Team) crushed out of the race.
Pramac’s Hector Barbera came back to the pits throughout the race, but could luckily rejoin the race. He finished in 16th and therefor last position.
The next round of MotoGP takes place at Assen, Netherlands on Thursday, 25th of June.
Are you ready to explore the transformative power of athlete sponsorship for your brand? Click here to learn more about how sponsorship can help brands grow and thrive in the exciting world of motorsports.
Managing Director for RTR Sports, Riccardo graduated in law at the University of Bologna. He began his career in London in PR, then started working in two and four-wheelers. A brief move to Monaco followed before returning to Italy. There he founded RTR, first a consulting firm and then a sports marketing company which, eventually, he moved back to London.
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Read MoreIn an era where it is possible to get anywhere with a click, there is a strong temptation to approach teams and properties directly for sponsorship projects.
By doing so, we are convinced that we are shortening the value chain, saving time and money. However, these DYI methods are anything but risk-free and what initially appears to be a competitive advantage soon turns into a problem that is difficult to resolve. That’s why there are agencies. And this is why you should rely on us for your sponsorships.
When first approaching a sponsorship or sports marketing project, it is difficult to know immediately which stakeholders are correct, what the decision flow is, and what the right timelines are for each process. Sports is a very specialized field of action, and fitting effectively into its paths can take a lot of time and therefore money. We, on the other hand, know referents and spheres of action and know who to talk to, when and how. So you are also more effective.
Sports is an immense passion, and for our heart colors we would be willing to do anything. But business is a different business, and it is important to make the best possible strategic decisions based on independent research, statistics and reliable data. A sports marketing and sports sponsorship agency like RTR has an objective, 360-degree picture of the scenario and can tell you what is really best for you: which sport, which athlete, which team. This is because we possess a great deal of data and information on ratings, segmentation and attitudes. Because the numbers don’t lie. Never.
Activations are the real heart of sports sponsorship. Without them, there remains only a blank sticker on a motorcycle, car or uniform and no contact with the public, no emotional connection, no impact on the bottom line. Then how do you do it? It certainly won’t be the teams or the athletes who will help you leverage sponsorship and enjoy the many marketing rights you have paid for. To bring out the best in a sports marketing project you need an agency that knows how to use sponsorship to engage the fanbase on the Web, to reach out to Shopping Centers, to organize hospitality, to develop B2B and B2C opportunities, and to get “your” athletes in front of millions of potential consumers.
Would you ever go to the dealer who sold you the car and ask if the competitor’s car is better? No, of course. So, how do you expect to get firm measurements of the effectiveness of your sponsorship if you do not rely on someone super partes? At RTR, we have always worked with independent third-party agencies that allow us to know the return on any exposure of your brand on TV and in the media. In addition, we believe in calculating ROI as the ultimate measure of your success-so we can tell you for every penny you spend how much you are making.
We have been involved in sports sponsorship and sports marketing for more than 15 years. We are consultants in the sense that our goal is to maximize your investment, but we are also an agency that manages the project from start to finish. We have been doing this since 1995 with passion and professionalism, following three principles that have become cornerstones of our business: independence, verticality and transparency.
I would like to highlight the fact that one of the qualities of RTR is its great ability to approach the sponsorship scenario strategically, together with its passionate attitude, its amazing enthusiasm for solving problems, and its high level of professionalism.
Gianluca Degliesposti
Executive Director Server&Storage EMEA
Eurosport is truly delighted with its business relationship with Riccardo Tafà, who has become extremely popular, thanks to his detailed knowledge of the sports marketing sector and his highly diligent attitude to work.
Francois Ribeiro
Commercial Director
Passion and Expertise are the features that I have found in RTR since the very beginning. Serious and reliable professionals but also very helpful, nice and open-mind people, willing to listen and compare different ideas. All the values in which RTR believes make this agency a partner, not just a supplier, a partner with whom we have had the opportunity to achieve significant commercial results in term of success and image.
Luca Pacitto
Head of Communication
We have been working with RTR Sports Marketing for over 10 years. The objectives and the programmes of collaboration continue to be renewed and to grow with mutual satisfaction. I believe RTR is a team of great professionals led by Riccardo Tafà, who I consider a manager of exceptional skills and with a great passion for his work.
Lucio Cecchinello
Team Principal
I have known and worked with Riccardo Tafà since 1995 when we collaborated for the first time on a project for the Williams Formula 1 team. Several clients followed. After leaving Williams to work for Gerhard Berger then owner of the Toro Rosso F1 Team, I turned again to Riccardo to seek his help in finding a tool supplier for the team and Riccardo duly obliged with an introduction to USAG, a partnership with Toro Rosso which endured for five years. I recently started a new role as Group Commercial Director for the renowned Andretti Autosport organisation and I find myself working with Riccardo once again on a number of interesting projects. Why has this relationship with Riccardo endured ? He’s smart, knows the commercial side of sport inside out and back to front and he’s honest and trustworthy. Riccardo Tafà is a “doer” not a “talker”: in over 20 years I have never had a dispute either with him or with a company that he has introduced and each partnership introduced by Riccardo has delivered quantifiable ROI to rights holder and sponsor alike. I can think of no better testimonial of Riccardo’s diligence, knowledge, contact base and hard work than that.
Jim Wright
Group Commercial Director
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