Ducati's WSBK PR man, Julian Thomas, here aboard the wildly popular Ducati HyperMotard, talks about his job in this interview, conducted by Andy Rixon. image by dean adamski

Julian Thomas is the public face of the Ducati Xerox World Superbike team. Chances are if you've read anything that's come officially from Ducati then it's come from Julian. He's a busy man but he kindly gave up some of his time to be interviewed last Saturday afternoon at Silverstone.

AR: Could you just describe what your role entails during a race meeting.

JT: I'm the press officer and PR man for the Ducati Xerox team in the World Superbike championship. A race weekend usually entails organising relations with the media and television regarding our riders or team staff. Organising all the interviews and interview requests. Organising the press conferences that we do, and ensuring that all the media are kept up to date with all the latest information. Writing press releases, sending out press releases. Doing presentations myself, as I have to keep one eye on the sponsors as well, and the sponsors guests, so that entails me doing three or four different presentations to the sponsors guests during the day explaining how the team works, taking them to the pit garage, or in the case of the Ducati Xerox junior team, taking them to the team pen. Giving them a run down on what the bike is, interviewing the riders, etc. Basically keeping the media, sponsors and guests happy, as well as writing the press releases!

AR: Is that all?

JT: (Laughs). Quite often my day slips into gear after the rider's day finishes, around 4 - 5pm, after superpole or qualifying. I have to write the press release in both languages because I work for an Italian team, so that's English and Italian, and ensure that it's printed out, sent out and up on the website. Normally my day finishes at about 8:30pm or something like that.

AR: How does your role change in the off season?

JT: I'll answer that by saying how my role changes when I go back to the office. There's quite a lot of preparatory work for the next race and of course follow up work from the previous race as you have to produce reports for internal purposes like the sponsors and of course for Ducati. Then there's the preparation for the next race, calling journalists, maintaining good relations with them. Keeping an eye on our testing schedule if we're doing testing and again putting out press reports and making sure that the photographic images are in the right place at the right time. I also work for the website, so I provide content to them. It's just non stop basically.
The off season, strange as it may seem, actually becomes a lot more busier than during the racing season as the races follow on a routine basis every couple of weeks. To be honest there's not really much of an off season anymore. Once the season finishes, testing gets under way, we do tests in November/December then, as it's a factory, Ducati closes down for Christmas and New Year. Then we open up again in January when we have to prepare for the launch, the presentation of the new team and the new season and then in February you're already under way.

AR: Some of the other teams employ a third party to handle all their PR, do you think this a good or bad thing?

JT: I wouldn't like to say really. I think in Ducati's case, because we have everything in-house, it's probably a disadvantage losing control over media and PR aspects. That's why I am a Ducati employee and I have a sort of 9 till 8 job in the factory. Because everything comes out of the Ducati factory I work in close collaboration with Ducati Corse, the team director, with the Ducati Corse engineering staff, Ducati Corse marketing staff, we're all a close knit bunch of people so I have my finger on the pulse at every moment. In our case I think it would be counter productive if we farmed everything out to an agency. Everything is done in house, all materials are produced in Ducati. For instance I can just call up the graphics department and say: I need headed notepaper, I need CD-ROM's, I need press kits, I need DVD's and I can get them straight away.

AR: From a journalists' point of view it's better having direct access to someone within the team.

JT: Exactly. For the outside world for media and press it can be difficult sometimes speaking to an agency. It then has to go back to the people you actually want to speak to and then back via the agency to yourselves. With Ducati we have such a close knit structure, we can shift things around quickly and respond to every sort of demand that comes to us from sponsors, from media or from the press.

AR: How did you get involved with Ducati?

JT: I originally got involved in Motorsport when I was a correspondent in Italy for Autosport magazine back at the start of the 90's. I covered Formula Three, Touring Cars, Italian rallying, basically all racing that happened in Italy I used to cover it. Then I got into the World Superbike Championship by knowing the Flammini Group, who were the organisers of the Formula Three championship. They asked me if I wanted to come and work for them as they were the organisers of the World Superbike championship. I did three years, 95 - 97, as the press officer of the championship. I had a couple of years out of Motorsport and then in 2001 Ducati offered me the job as press officer.

AR: How did you actually become a press officer?

JT: Well obviously I was a journalist and that was my main role.

AR: Did you sort of fall into it or did you target it?

JT: Motorsport has always been a passion of mine and when the chance came to actually go and cover Motorsport events as a journalist and photographer I jumped at the opportunity. I was lucky to have that opportunity but I also believe that I made the most of it, being an English speaker but also speaking Italian. I believe that you create your own opportunities, it's the people you know and what you do. When you show that you are capable of doing things the opportunities come to you.

AR: Obviously speaking Italian is a big benefit.

JT: Sure, it is a big benefit especially in World Superbike as there are obviously a lot of Italian and British teams and obviously the organisers are Italian. I speak other languages as well, Spanish, French and German. I believe that Motorsport revolves around Britain and Italy for Superbikes and F1 and Spain as well for MotoGP, so in this field languages are useful.

AR: As a press officer what's the single greatest skill that you use?

JT: I'd like to think communication. I'd like to think that I can interface and communicate with the people that I'm supposed to, the media, the press, the TV, the sponsors, guests etc. Actually probably also versatility is the best thing because in a job like this it's difficult to nail down exactly what you do so you have to adapt to many different situations. Especially over the race weekend when everything can change in a moment, there are so many different things that can be thrust upon you.

AR: Like Troy's accident at Donington?

"Just as if we want to compete in AMA we would sort out some way of doing it. It's not on our priority list at the moment because we are still waiting for the rule change in World Superbike to come through but I'm sure decisions will be made in the future."

JT: Exactly. In moments of great stress and tiredness, because you work long hours, you're always changing to take account of the situation; versatility is probably the best skill that I have.

AR: There have been a number of changes at a senior level in Ducati recently, Paolo Ciabatti moved from Ducati Corse to SBK, Federico Minoli stepped down as CEO of Ducati, Gabriele Del Torchio has been appointed CEO and Giampiero Paoli has been appointed Chairman. Has that had any direct effect on the team or is it just a case of getting on with things?

JT: To a certain extent we just get on with it. As I said before Ducati Corse is a rapidly reacting close knit organisation and we can fit people into positions fairly easily if necessary. Paolo Ciabatti was the superbike program director for a number of years, it obviously a loss on a personal level as he was a good friend of mine and of Davide Tardozzi. It's also a loss for the company on a certain level but it's a great acquisition for FGSport as Paolo is a man of great experience and skill. Davide has been moved into Paolo's role and as well as being sporting director of the team which he's done successfully for many years, he's now moving into other areas which were previously covered by Paolo.
We all have increased responsibilities within the team now, to slip into any gaps that might have been created by the loss of Paolo. As for Ducati on a general level, the change at the top is all part of the restructuring that has gone on within Ducati with the exit of Texas Pacific and the consequent departure of Federico Minoli, who was put in by Texas Pacific group a few years ago. The new investors have seen fit, quite rightly so, to put their own man at the top. That's Ducati on a factory level, it obviously affects Ducati Corse but at the moment there's no sort of negative feedback.

AR: Ducati is almost a family and those sorts of changes can have more of an effect than on, say a large corporation like Honda, where the workers may not even see the chairman except on TV.

JT: That's true. But Ducati Motor, with the new board of directors, are entirely behind the racing programs. We don't believe there will be any negative consequences. The racing program is self sustained, both in MotoGP and in Superbike because we have our budget which comes from sponsors, commercial and marketing activities, Ducati Corse is a separate organisation within Ducati Motor and the Ducati Corse racing program continues after having found sponsorship and income.

AR: The 1200cc issue has obviously been dominating headlines recently. A statement was made by Claudio Dominicali, the Ducati Corse managing director, that unless a decision is made to allow you to run 1200cc twins by the end of May you would pull out. What the current situation?

JT: We understand that there will be a decision announced at the MSMA meeting at Mugello next week. We are very confident and optimistic that our proposal, and that from other manufacturers who would like to race with 1200cc engines, will go through.
Not a lot of people know that until now there have been two regulations in WSB, one for the 1000cc fours and one for 1000cc twins. The twins are allowed a lot higher level of preparation and tuning than the fours. That's been standing since 2003 to keep them competitive against the fours. We would now like to reduce that level of preparation and tuning on the twins but have the 200cc increase because we believe the 1200cc twin can compete with the same regulations as the 1000cc four at the same level. That would also help to bring the costs down for us because basically we have a prototype out there with a certain level of MotoGP technology and we are unable to continue in the same way with a bike that does not exist anymore, the 999, which is no longer our production bike as it has been replaced by the 1098.

AR: A lot of the concern is not so much with the power levels but with the torque that the bike could produce.

JT: From a Ducati point of view we don't think the torque will be as much of an issue on the track as it may be on the road. We've done our comparisons between the fours and the twins and we don't see an issue there. Obviously some people think this will be an issue but we don't!

AR: If the 1200c issue is sorted out to Ducati's satisfaction next week, do you have enough time to prepare a new machine and conform to the homologation rules, in time to race the new bike next season?

JT: Once you set a deadline, as we have for the end of May, you have to go through with it! So basically after May it would have been the point of no return because the 1098 is a brand new bike and it requires a certain amount of time for preparation of materials to have it ready for next year. We already have tested the bike on track, it's basically an elaborated Superstock bike at the moment because, until the regulations are finalised, we don't know what direction they are going to take. The ratification of the rules and regulations may also include a higher number limit for homologation, whereas before with Ducati being a small manufacturer we could make 150 specials, we don't want to have to do that anymore. We're quite happy with raising the bar for the homologation number limit. So after the summer I feel sure we'll have a full testing schedule for the new bike.

AR: If the regulations were sorted out to your satisfaction in the AMA would Ducati return there?

JT: We'd obviously like to be competing in the AMA. We pulled out of the championship because we felt that we could not compete on equal terms because the AMA regulations are slightly different. You have to have standard cranks, different primary gears and various other components. Although the bike was very similar to the World Superbike machine and we had a couple of good riders, we felt we were not able to compete on equal terms in the championship. It looks as if, however, World Superbike, British Superbike and AMA are going different ways in their thinking towards the future. The British Superbike championship, which is one of the most important domestic championships, is looking for a different solution.