Meet The New Boss: Javier Alonso

Gordon Ritchie | March 21, 2013

Javier Alonso, the new boss of World Superbike racing, came to the opening round of the championship to meet the media, the riders, teams and manufacturers face to face. Having taken over the helm of the series just a few months earlier and with many contracts already in place, only so much could be done. But Alonso did speak about his future plans and philosophies.

Is this your first-ever World Superbike race?

I have not been to World Superbike in Phillip Island, but I have been to other World Superbike races in the past. I like racing. I have been in racing all my life since I started working – many types of different races so I knew about Superbike already.

Your impression of World Superbike so far?

I need more time to answer that question… We are learning and one approach that we have in Dorna is that people do not know anything until you know it. So we cannot arrive here and try to say that we are the masters because we have come from MotoGP, and we have been successful in MotoGP, and we can impose our way of doing things and that will work. No, that is a different championship and a different personality and we have to learn this one. We have to understand what is the best for the championship together with the people that are inside this championship. As an example, I ran the Spanish Championship, it was under my responsibility and, of course, it has a different personality and we have to run it as it is – the Spanish Championship. Why do we run the Spanish Championship? We believe there has to be a domestic championship for the rider to be tested in that before they go to MotoGP.