The kart and Fiat 500 races...
The kart and Fiat 500 races are held on the frozen lake in front of the Relais des Alpes grand hotel that serves as the center of the Wrooom village. While these are supposedly run for fun, the seriousness with which everyone looks at them belies that amusement theme.
It’s spelled Wrooom yet pronounced “vroom”, but mostly what it is is the epitome of “la dolce vita,” the Italian phrase which literally translates as ‘the sweet life.’
As it’s been for 22 years now, Wrooom 2012 was an invitation-only gathering of the world’s MotoGP and Formula One media in the picturesque Italian ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio, a mile up in the Italian Dolomites of northern Italy. For a working journalist, this is a week that’s eagerly anticipated, not only for being the first news event of the new year, but also because there’s plenty of time for other diversions. Where else might you have a chance to snowboard with Valentino Rossi or ski with Nicky Hayden, Fernando Alonso, or Felipe Massa? Like everything else this week, skis, helmets, goggles, and lessons are provided through the generosity of Philip Morris, the sponsor of the Ducati and Marlboro world championship teams.
Ducati even had the two-up...
Ducati even had the two-up Desmosedici equipped with ice studs for the Wrooom event. Maybe this is the solution to the front-end problems plaguing the GP11?
For the two-wheel crowd, there was even more time for winter sports. Having just endured their worst and most expensive season in MotoGP racing, there was some grumbling when it became known that Ducati’s new 2012 bike wouldn’t be unveiled, causing at least one weekly to re-do its front page. And no one seemed all that eager to talk about it; not the riders, nor the respected engineer in charge of the project, Filippo Preziosi.
Why wasn’t the bike unveiled? Simple: it wasn’t built. While part of the Ducati Marlboro team was enjoying a winter ski vacation, crew chiefs Jeremy Burgess and Juan Martinez, and their crews, were in Bologna building the motorcycles that wouldn’t be seen in public until the end of the month, at the opening MotoGP test of the year in Sepang, Malaysia.
How, then, to spend the week in Madonna di Campiglio?
Monday
Madonna di Campiglio is about a three-hour drive from Milan, depending on the transport. Monday is reserved for checking into the Relais des Alpes, a grand hotel facing the frozen lake that serves as the center of the village with magnificent views of the Dolomites. From the des Alpes it’s a short walk to the Palawrooom Convention Center, where the journalists work, where the press conferences are held, and where local delicacies are served all day in the lounge bar. It’s not all work.
Then comes the opening night party back in the des Alpes, the first time anyone gets a glimpse of the riders and drivers. This year’s party was much calmer than last year’s, when photographers and videographers fought to get the first photos of Rossi in Ducati clothing. On Monday night, Rossi, Hayden, Massa, and Alonso showed up en masse for an appearance onstage. Almost immediately after the photo op the principals disappeared, with the exception of Hayden, who mingled with the crowd.
Tuesday was reserved for press...
Tuesday was reserved for press conference/photo ops with Hayden and Rossi. Hayden was far more accessible than Rossi, whose press conference was the only chance for the media to see him, as he wasn’t doing any one-on-one interviews; even the TV crews were limited to only three questions.
The first full day of activities was reserved for press conferences by Hayden and Rossi, with a team photo op in between. Having spent the season explaining downfield finishes, this was a chance to project optimism for the future, which Hayden did, though without any concrete evidence. He hadn’t seen nor ridden the new bike. All he knew was that the bike he might ride in Sepang was almost entirely new. Might, because he was unsure his fractured shoulder — injured in a December indoor flat-track training accident — would allow him to ride.
When asked what he knew of the new bike, Hayden deflected the question to Preziosi, who was scheduled to speak on Wednesday. Hayden dutifully answered questions about his shoulder blade, what he’d asked for in the new GP12, about the Claiming Rule Teams, about the Bridgestone tires, about a possible 20-race season, about his expectations for 2012, and also about what it was like to race as Rossi’s teammate, among other things.
Tuesday was reserved for press...
Tuesday was reserved for press conference/photo ops with Hayden and Rossi. Hayden was far more accessible than Rossi, whose press conference was the only chance for the media to see him, as he wasn’t doing any one-on-one interviews; even the TV crews were limited to only three questions.
Hayden was the warm-up act for Rossi, who had much more to answer for. The nine-time world champion was viewed as the team’s savior when he arrived a year earlier, but had a dismal, dispiriting year. He admitted that after three laps of the first test on the GP11 he knew he couldn’t win the first race. And this year? “Sure is a dream to try to win the first race, but in reality I think we are a bit too far. But maybe the new bike is a miracle,” he said during a session in which he moved seamlessly between his native Italian and English. That the redesigned GP12 would be better, Rossi was taking as an article of faith; he’d only seen the new bike on a computer screen.
Asked about his future, and the possibility of returning to a Japanese brand, he said, “Not now, because of course I would like to do at least another contract, so I would still like to sign a further two-year contract.” And to go back with the Japanese bike? “It’s not very likely, but who knows? Not that I can say today that it’s impossible. But we started with this project and at least we would like to become competitive and we would like to win something.”
This would be the only chance for the media to officially question Rossi, other than several television broadcasters, who were each permitted to ask three questions. Hayden was a bit more accessible.