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By Emanuele Venturoli| Posted April 14, 2015 | In MotoGP, Motor Racing, Motorsports
Just two days after the race in Austin, the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team heads to Termas de Río Hondo for this weekend‘s Gran Premio de la República Argentina.
Valentino Rossi arrives in South America fresh from a third place podium finish at Circuit of the Americas (COTA). Still topping the World Championship standings, the nine-time World Champion looks forward to bettering his position from last year‘s race at the Termas de Rio Hondo Circuit, when he finished just off the podium in fourth place.
Despite being ill last week, teammate and four-time World Champion Jorge Lorenzo still managed to take fourth at COTA. Currently holding fifth place in the championship, he hopes to return to a hundred per cent level of fitness for Sunday‘s race where he will be challenging for another strong result, like his third place at the Argentinian track from last year.
Though officially inaugurated on May 11, 2008, the 4.8km long Termas de Rio Hondo Circuit was not added to the MotoGP calendar until last year after it was remodeled in 2012. The re-design aimed to turn the track into Latin America‘s most modern and safest circuit, providing fans with even more exciting racing action. With a fun lay out that includes a mixture of fast corners (five left and nine right) and a 1076m in length longest straight, this year‘s Gran Premio de la República Argentina is likely to be another showstopper.
“I‘m happy to go to Argentina because I like the track. We hope that there will be a better condition of the tarmac compared to last year, because the track and the lay out are good. It‘s also not a bad circuit for our YZR-M1, but first we take a few days of rest and then we‘ll try to be focused and prepared for the race.”
“After being fourth again in Austin I look forward to facing Argentina to try to gain momentum. I think we have solved the first races, where we struggle a bit because of different issues, in the best way possible. We are fifth in the championship, but this is still at the kick off stage. I feel good in terms of riding and also with the bike. Unfortunately I was sick the whole week in Austin and I wasn‘t able to be in a perfect shape to fight for the podium. I hope Argentina will suit us better. In Termas the circuit is pretty nice to ride and last year, even if I wasn‘t in an optimal shape, I still managed to get on the podium. It‘s a fast track with very nice corners and I guess this is good news for our bike.”
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.
A graduate in Public, Social and Political Communication from the University of Bologna, he has always been passionate about marketing, design and sport.
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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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