Brivio: Team radio biggest difference between F1 and MotoGP

Brivio left his position running Suzuki’s MotoGP squad off the back of last year’s world championship victory to take up a senior F1 role with Alpine.

The Italian serves as the racing director for Alpine, jointly running the outfit alongside executive director Marcin Budkowski following its restructuring of its management team.

Discussing his first two races working in F1, Brivio said that one of the biggest things he had to get used to following his move was the use of team radio to stay in constant contact with the drivers.

In MotoGP, teams can only communicate with riders while they are out on-track via short messages on the dashboard of the bike or by using a pit board.

“It’s maybe a funny a thing, but the biggest difference is the radio,” Brivio said.

“You are in contact with the driver constantly, the race engineer telling them to do this, to do that, wait a little bit, whatever.

“[In MotoGP] once the race starts, the rider is by himself. You just sit down and you watch television, that’s all you can do.

“Here, you’re constantly in contact. You’re almost in the car. You are much more a part of what is going on in the track, I think.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A521, Fernando Alonso, Alpine A521

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“You’re not just enjoying it. You enjoy it, but not as a spectator. So the radio was the biggest difference, but interesting and very exciting.”

Brivio said that he was surprised by how quickly F1 races went by once underway, typically lasting around an hour longer than MotoGP events.

“I experienced the first race in Bahrain, at the beginning I would say, 'wow, 1h40m, 1h45m, whatever it is, it will be long’.

“But it went quickly, because you’re so busy, listening, checking, analysing. So it’s very interesting, a great experience.”

Brivio has also been impressed by the greater complexity of the technology and the data collected in F1 compared to MotoGP.

“I’m not an engineer, but I can really appreciate from the technology,” Brivio said. “It’s very interesting, and this one of the reasons why I decided to join, because I couldn’t understand everything from the television or when you come as a guest.

“There are many similarities I would say. Riders and drivers, they have the same up and down motivation. [They are in] good shape, bad shape, complaining, not happy, whatever. So from this point of view it’s OK.

“Just maybe the technology, it’s more complex. The car is bigger, it’s many more parts, much more information and things you can measure, and therefore as a consequence, many things you need to analyse and check.

“It’s very interesting and I'm very excited to get in.”