The World Championship in general, and Moto3 in particular, is in luck this season for Teo Martín’s arrival in the championship, a history of car racing that has finally made the leap to two wheels. About to turn 67, the creator of the MSI institute has the illusion of a child, and has formed the MT Helmets-MSI from Moto3 who is giving to talk to the rookie Diogo Moreira and in which it has two trusted partners who know very well what this is about, Oscar Manzano and Jordi Gatell. Beware of the newcomer who even dreams of MotoGP…
-How has it taken so long for a racing man like you to arrive at the Motorcycle World Championship?
-Five years ago we tested the possibility, talking with Paolo Simoncelli. There was an approach having dinner to do Moto3 together. I told him I’d love to, but we stopped the project and started it again a couple of years ago. I spoke with Carmelo (Ezpeleta). I told him I wanted to have a team, but then there was no room. And last year I told him again and he told me: “Teo, if you do a project like the one you do in cars, educational and serious, you’ll have a place.” And so we have done, joining Óscar (Manzano) and Jordi (Gatell), who were already doing the Junior World Cup and Pedro Acosta came out of them. They are serious people with a lot of passion. The championship gave me the places so that I could manage them and I associated myself with them.
-First sensations?
-I am delighted.
-This Spanish GP is the first one you come to as co-owner of a team, right?
-Correct. She had come to visit before, but not to compete. We have many categories in the cars and it is very difficult to balance calendars, but Jerez could not miss it. We have won many times here in cars and I had to come to compete on a motorcycle.
-Does the movie change a lot?
Yes, it changes a lot. Before, she used to come to visit and say hello to friends. Now we are competing and I try to be aware of everything. It is a great satisfaction and now you realize what a perfect organization this great prize is. IRTA and Dorna are to be congratulated.
-Differences that you notice between the world of cars and that of motorcycles?
-The circuits used to be filled with car races and now, F1 apart, attendance has been going down and down. That’s why I come to the motorcycles and I consider it as a challenge. In cars we have been winning three titles per year for three years uninterruptedly and, in quotes, you get a little tired of winning. In addition, as we have the subject of university training, the MSI, and we join the Francisco de Vitoria University, to make the official degrees. We do the motorsport master for engineers and professional training for mechanics. This is incredible work and when we enter the Motorcycle World Championship we want to build an exclusive building for motorcycles in our university, where we have the teams and train engineers and mechanics for competition and also for the street, because there are a lot of problems in Madrid of motorcycle mechanics.
-Are you coming to the bikes willing to grow or are you satisfied with Moto3?
-(Smile). I would like to grow, but everything has to be in its time. MotoGP is difficult, because they are very closed places, but you always have to have a dream and I would love to be in MotoGP one day.
-Going through Moto2?
-If I had the opportunity to be in MotoGP I would jump directly from Moto3, skipping Moto2, but I understand that you have to go to Moto2 first. This is an illusion, nothing more.
-Ezpeleta feeds your dream? I tell him because his face reflects illusion when he talks about it…
-Carmelo tells me that it is difficult, because the teams that exist are very established, but well…
-You have a diamond in the rough in Moto3 with the Brazilian Diogo Moreira. It is one of the sensations of the start of the season…
-He is a very nice guy and I was very surprised that he preferred to be with us having an offer from KTM and Ajo. I didn’t understand why he chose us. I only know that he did not want Monlau to be involved, an agreement was reached with them to free himself and he did not want to be in an official team. Perhaps he wanted to have less pressure and saw that we were more like a family with a lot of passion. And also that we can grow together. It’s nice to see the team work, with the passion they do, and that’s how things have to be done.
-I see him hooked to the motorcycle paddock. Is there a better atmosphere than in car racing?
-There is a very good atmosphere. We’ve been in cars for a long time and in recent years we’ve been a semi-factory team for McLaren, the same as with BMW, so you’re always fighting with the other factory team. Thank God, we beat them, and here I see that they invited us to have a beer yesterday at Suzuki, with Estrella Galicia, and you talk to people, see riders and say hello with Jorge Martín or Joan Mir. I loved it.
-It’s a paddock still racing from before.
-Well yes. And there is another thing, which is that Carmelo involves the pilots and listens to them and exchanges impressions with them, to improve safety. Although everyone wants to win and they go their own way, this World Cup is a big family and it’s very well thought out.
-I am surprised to see him so excited at 66 years of age. Has motorcycle poison already entered your veins?
-(Smile). In cars I still have that passion, but not so much anymore. I am excited that in the cars we have started this year as a Hynduai team and I would like to win in the first year, and there is passion, but in the motorcycles the atmosphere there encourages you and you feel that this is the bomb.
-Do you see yourself winning the Moto3 World Championship one day?
–(Series). I would like to, but those are big words. If we had had a team last year, Pedro Acosta would have been with us… How high he set the bar.
-To finish, what do you think is your greatest sporting milestone?
-A great satisfaction was winning the three GT Open titles with McLaren in 2020. We had already won it with Honda in 2019 and last year with Honda, in touring cars, but it is different to run the CET to the GT Open, which is an international championship throughout Europe.
-Let’s see if one day he can boast of the Moto3 title and being on the MotoGP grid.
-Hopefully.