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By Riccardo Tafà| Posted November 6, 2016 | In MotoGP, Sport News
Valencia MotoGP 2016: Michelin is on the way to Spain for the fourth and final time this season as the French company’s neighbours hold host to the 18th and concluding round of the 2016 MotoGP™ Championship and the Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana this Sunday.
The traditional season-ending event of Valencia MotoGP is held at the Circuito de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo, situated near the village of Cheste just on the outskirts of the city of Valencia. Its unique design makes it the only stadium circuit on the calendar, with grandstands surrounding all sides of the track so fans can see most of the action from any vantage point. It is this unusual feature that adds to a very distinctive layout over the circuit’s 4,005m distance.
Valencia MotoGP Circuit Location. The anti-clockwise design features 14 corners, of which nine are left-hand and five are right-handed and a straight of just 650m, which is approached by a very fast left turn.
With the extra left corners, Michelin has brought a range of MICHELIN Power SLICK tyres which will feature an asymmetric design – with a harder left-hand shoulder – for both the front and rear allocation. Available in medium (no band) and hard (yellow band) for the front, along with soft (white band) and medium (no band) for the rear, the tyres are aimed to give the riders the best choice to use in the colder morning temperatures that are common at the circuit in November, right through to the warmer conditions that are usually experienced when race-day afternoon arrives.
Michelin’s provision of tyres for the MotoGP field will also include the MICHELIN Power Rain in extra soft (light blue band), soft (blue band) and medium (no band) for both the front and rear, plus the Power Inters being made available if there are mixed conditions or a drying track.
Valencia MotoGP Test|The final round of the season gets underway on Friday with two free practice sessions. Saturday will have further practice sessions, before the excitement of qualifying takes place in the afternoon to decide the grid position for Sunday’s 30-lap race. A big crowd is expected trackside when the race gets underway at 14.00hrs local time (13.00hrs GMT) and the excited fans will also be treated to the customary celebratory fireworks that are usually lit by the champions of all three classes – MotoGP, Moto2™ and Moto3™ – at the end of their respective races, all adding to the spectacle and festivities as the racing calendar draws to a close.
Piero Taramasso – Manager of the Two-Wheel Motorsport Group:
“Valencia signifies our last race of 2016, but it also means it’s the start of 2017 because we have an important test in the week after the race. We have had an interesting season with lots of different challenges, mostly from the weather, so we are hoping that will not play a part this weekend. We learned a lot from the post-race test at Valencia last year and that set us on our way for 2016 and we will be going to this race with very different tyres to what we had this time last year. Valencia MotoGP circuit can be cold in the mornings and it doesn’t give much grip, so we have a range that we hope will cope with these conditions. That said though, with so many corners the edges of the tyres don’t have much chance to cool down and with the extra number of left-hand corners, including the fast final turn, we have asymmetric tyres with harder left-hand shoulders for front and rear to cope with those kinds of stresses.
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MICHELIN MOTOGP PRESS RELEASE
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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