In the latest episode of the MotoGP™ Podcast, Last On The Brakes, Petronas SRT boss Razlan Razali talks how he chose his MotoGP™ riders
On this week’s episode of the MotoGP™ Podcast, Last On The Brakes, hosts Matt Dunn and Fran Wyld were joined by Petronas SRT boss Razlan Razali. The Malaysian talked in-depth on a wide range of topics, including how the Petronas Yamaha SRT MotoGP™ project was put together. He also touched on the thought process behind his rider line-up and whether they were “lucky” to have signed up rookie sensation Fabio Quartararo.
In short, yes. Razali admits that his team “got lucky” when selecting Quartararo to be one of their two riders for their MotoGP™ debut. But Razali is happy to admit that the Frenchman is just a “special” talent and the next Quartararo can be unearthed along the line if they stick to their philosophy of developing riders from the Junior World Championship upwards.
“When you enter into MotoGP, it’s more of a business,” started Razali. “With Petronas coming in and investing a lot in us as a title partner, it became a business. Performance became one of the top three objectives. Of course, for Petronas, the commercial and branding side was more important. But for us, it’s more important to have the right riders. This doesn’t necessarily come from the ranks, but the focus is still there.
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“Our philosophy is still to try and develop riders from the Junior World Championship all the way up. It’s not going to be easy, it will take a long, long time. But because of MotoGP, because of the business and more prominent category, we need to put the best riders that we feel meet the objective of our title partners. So it’s not like, you’re in the Junior World Championship and you have every right to promote yourself all the way to MotoGP. If you perform – yes, by all means. If you’re champion in the Junior World Championship, come into Moto3 and within two years if you’re champion, you go to Moto2 – like Marc Marquez.
“But again, if you look at Fabio, for example, he was nowhere really in Moto2 in 2018. There are other riders we could have chosen because they were up there. But we brought the guy in and he’s just special and boom! He did it. But can we find someone the same? We don’t know. We just got lucky. But no, it’s not a given right that if you are a Junior World Champion, you will get the right to go all the way up. You have to perform regardless.”
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There’s so much to get your teeth stuck into this week on the MotoGP™ Podcast. Along with this and the Petronas SRT series we have coming up, MotoGP™ fans don’t have an excuse to be bored this week. Below are some of the topics that are addressed by Razlan:
– Who is Razlan Razali?
– The importance of Sepang Circuit to South East Asian motorsport
– MotoGP™’s rise of popularity in South East Asia
– How to create a MotoGP™ team from scratch
– How hard is it for a rider to get to MotoGP™?
– Creating the right attitude in young racers…
– How long does it take to get to top of the sport?
– Kenwood Quickfire
– Things you should go watch online NOW!
Head on over to your preferred podcast platform to give your Monday a lift, with the MotoGP™ Podcast also available to watch on YouTube!
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